The Power Within: Conspiracy
by mau5girl
Summary: If it weren't for bad luck, Zephi Weston would have no luck at all. Getting snatched off the face of the Sinnoh region, tangling herself up in a dangerous conspiracy, putting a stop to the "resetting" of the world... Could life get any more complicated?
1. Unclichéd Beginnings

Celestic Town had always been a sleepy, slow-paced village. It was a town of peaceful tranquility and rustic serenity, the majority of its population elderly. Being one of the only kids in the village, I felt as though I was quickly outgrowing the tiny town; especially because I'd never been out of Celestic Town in my life.

My hometown was one of those towns that had a lethargic, drifting lifestyle. Many of Celestic Town's residents found that satisfying , though the kid population certainly did not. Typically, nothing exciting happened and days passed slowly, meandering. It is because of this that I'm already fourteen years old and I don't yet have my Pokémon Trainer's License. Most kids receive their first Pokémon and Pokédex at the age of ten, but I have been strictly forbidden to receive mine. Ever, I think.

I spend my days with my nose buried in a book about Pokémon training or my eyes glued to the TV screen watching a live Pokémon battle. I have learned quite a lot from my years of studying, and I know that if I ever do become a Trainer, this knowledge will certainly come in handy.

As a matter of fact, it did come in handy sooner than I'd thought.

* * *

><p>The moon was high in the sky and the night sparkled with the glow of thousands of stars. It would've been the perfect summer night to grab a sleeping bag and sleep outside; that is, if we weren't on an expedition in the middle of the night. My best friend, Lara, and I silently counted heads to make sure everyone was present.<p>

"Crap. Evelyn and her brothers ain't here yet. D'you think they were held up?" Lara asked, her Solaceon accent and bright blue eyes tinged with worry.

Just then, right on schedule, a trio of arguing voices cut through the silent night.

"Shut up! Someone's gonna hear you!"

"Me? You're making enough noise to wake up a Snorlax! You shut up!"

"Damn it! Both of you shut up and move your asses. Don't say another word!"

I could hear my other best friend, Evelyn, squabbling with her two little brothers in the distance and I shot a smile at Lara. She breathed a sigh of relief and gave me a weak smile. I shook my head slightly and chuckled under my breath. She was such a worrywart.

Everyone was here at last. I waited for Evelyn and her brothers to scuttle up to the little group huddled at the upper east entrance to Mt. Coronet, then I began to outline our game plan.

"Okay, guys, this is how it's going to be. We need two guards stationed outside the entrance at all times, just to warn us if someone's coming. If they spot someone, they need to yell "abort!" into the cave and we'll scatter. Guards will be switched periodically so that everyone can have a chance to explore. Oh, and also, no one go too deep or you'll end up on Route 216 which leads to Snowpoint City."

I stopped anxiously, wondering if I'd gone overboard on the rules and ruined the fun of the expedition, but everyone just nodded and whispered "Roger."

The first two guards were decided quickly - Lara and this other guy our age called Chase. The rest of us flew through the Mt. Coronet entrance to explore, Evelyn and I at the head of the pack.

"You little brats better stay together or else," Evelyn snarled at her brothers as they ran off into the cave.

"You should be nicer to them, Ev," I chided her. "They're actually not bad kids."

Evelyn made a face. "Who are you, my mother? And, anyway, you don't know them like I do. They're about as useless as a team of Magikarps and twice as stupid."

I thought she was being more than a little unreasonable, but I brushed it off and dropped the topic.

"Let's just forget about them, then, and go explore," I suggested.

Evelyn smirked. "I thought you'd never ask. Let's go!"

She raced deeper into the cave with me hot on her tail.

"Whoa! What the hell?"

Evelyn stopped so abruptly that I slammed into her from behind and she fell to her knees on the cave floor.

"Zephi! Slow down! Damn, that hurt. Ow."

I hurriedly reached down to help her up. "Ooh, I'm so sorry, Evelyn! I'll be more careful next time, I promise."

But Evelyn wasn't listening. She was staring down at the cave floor at a large round object. I recognized it immediately.

"Evelyn! You found a Pokémon Egg!" I cried.

"What? I did? Really?" she bumbled.

Just then, an insistent cry ruined the moment.

"Abort! Abort! We've been found!"

I grabbed Evelyn's arm and began to pull her towards the cave entrance, but she resisted.

"Zephi, help me get the Egg."

"No way, are you crazy? Your mom will never let you keep it! What will become of it?"

"Fine, don't help me then."

"Evelyn! You can't take the Egg!"

"Watch me."

Evelyn looked at me then with an unreadable expression in her eyes.

"Zeph, you gotta loosen up. You're way too uptight and you abide by the rules _all the time_. Do something rebellious for a change, break a rule or two. I'm taking the Egg. You helping me or not?"

Evelyn's words were like a slap in the face. But they were also a wake-up call. Angry as I was at her blunt insult, I nodded decisively.

"Yeah, I'll help."

Evelyn smiled widely, her hazel eyes gleaming. "Atta girl, Zephi. Good choice."

Working together, Evelyn and I rolled the Egg out of the cave entrance and shoved it into a bush. Everyone else had hidden by now, so we jumped behind the bush with the Egg while the sound of footsteps came closer.

"You kids are in big trouble. Get out from wherever you were cowardly enough to hide and get back to the village. Maybe then you can begin to describe why you would even_ think_ about doing something so foolish!"

Oh, man. It was Evelyn's mom. I knew it was a trap. Evelyn knew it was a trap. Unfortunately for us, though, Evelyn's little brothers did not. They trotted out from their hiding place behind a big rock like good little boys and stood beside their mother with hangdog expressions on their faces.

"Oh shit," Evelyn swore.

Yup. We were definitely in for it.

* * *

><p>Every single one of us had been caught and grounded for a month.<p>

I figured Evelyn would be crushed, especially since her Egg was still where we'd left it in the bush. Which is why it surprised even me, who knew Evelyn so well, that she would come knocking on my window on the very first day of the grounding.

"Evelyn! You're supposed to be grounded!" I protested, yanking up the window to get a clear view of my best friend's smug expression.

"Oh, Zephi, Zephi, Zephi, whatever happened to your decision to be more of a rebel? C'mon, my Egg awaits. Open your window a bit more and get out here."

Evelyn's cool carelessness was really getting to me. Without meaning to, I sort of blew up on her.

"You know what, Evelyn? I don't wanna get in any more trouble than I'm already in. Damn it, I'll never become a Pokémon Trainer if I can't stay out of hot water!"

Evelyn narrowed her eyes at me. "You'll never become a Pokémon Trainer if you don't grow a frickin' backbone. Whatever, though. Your loss. See ya!"

I blinked and she was gone. I growled under my breath.

"What the hell?" I cried.

Then I slipped out the window after Evelyn.

* * *

><p>"Oh, look who it is! Zephi the rebel. Nice to see you on this side of the window, baby."<p>

I'd caught up to Evelyn and now matched her stride for stride as we headed to the bush to retrieve her Pokémon Egg.

"Don't get used to it. Hell, why didn't you just ask Lara, spare me the guilt I feel for deliberately disobeying my parents?" I sighed.

"Because she's Lara. She'd never go for it and you know it," Evelyn chuckled.

I was about to say neither would I, but then I realized what I would be saying and that shut me up for sure. I didn't want to give Evelyn another reason to scorn me.

"I wonder what kind of Pokémon will hatch from your Egg?" I ventured, trying to force the conversation in a different direction.

"I hope it's a strong one," Evelyn cooed, smiling widely. "But really, I can't believe it! My very own Pokémon! Ooh, I can't wait for it to hatch!"

We gushed about Evelyn's Egg all the way to the bush where it was sitting, unharmed, exactly where we'd left it.

"Okay. Time to roll it on outta here. Zephi, help me push it," Evelyn instructed.

The two of us pushed the Egg out from behind the bush and started rolling it back towards Celestic Town, when Evelyn stopped short.

"Zephi, I hear footsteps!" she wailed.

I'd just about had it with getting in trouble. Seriously. I was definitely not the rebellious type.

"Damn it, we've been found _again_! I knew I shouldn't have listened to you!" I hissed at Evelyn.

"Girls, girls, pipe down or someone will hear you! I've come to help you, not to hurt you!" a mysterious old woman's voice called out in a loud whisper.

"Zephi! Evelyn! I'm here too! Everything's gonna be honky-dory, just you wait!"

That last voice was undoubtedly Lara. Evelyn and I knew that if Lara trusted this mystery woman enough to sneak out of her grounding, then she was trustworthy for sure. We waited for Lara and the old woman to come closer, and in doing so, we realized that the elderly woman was old Professor Carolina. The woman was so ancient that she had been nicknamed the "kooky old lady" because half the stuff she said was totally bogus. Evelyn and I were stunned. This was the woman Lara trusted enough to sneak out?

"Now I'm gonna be brief here, girls, because we don't got much time. Lara. Evelyn. Zephira. I wanna play Pokémon Professor one last time before I kick the bucket and Celestic Town is forever rid of the 'kooky old lady'. Now I've been savin' these for a moment just like this one, so I want you to take them and don't ask any questions."

Quickly, Professor Carolina handed each of us a red square box with many buttons and flashing lights. I could not believe my eyes. Pokédexes!

"But, Professor!"

We all tried to protest, but we were quickly silenced by a stare from the old woman.

"Listen to me. You three girls have simply grown right out of tiny Celestic Town and it's not fair to keep you cooped up any longer. Don't worry, I will inform your parents of my decision tomorrow. Take these Pokédexes as Trainer licenses and fulfill your dreams at last. I only ask one small favour in return - if you're passing through Veilstone City, please give this book to my granddaughter. It's very old so please be careful with it. Good bye then, girls, and good luck on your journey!"

With surprising strength, the old lady pushed us into Mt. Coronet, Evelyn straining to keep her Egg close. Before we could ask any questions, true to her word, Professor Carolina was gone.

Great. Here we were with nowhere to go, no clue what to do, Pokédexes without instructions, and... no Pokémon. I had dreamed of myself becoming a Trainer in many different ways, but there was no way in hell that I would've ever imagined this.


	2. Travelling on Empty

"Well, now what?" I asked in exasperation.

When I played out what I'd planned to be my first thoughts as a Pokemon Trainer; joy, excitement, and total happiness were some of the feelings that came to mind. Not confusion. And doubt. A flash of anger shot through me at Professor Carolina.

"She ruined our journeys before they've even started! She left us lost with no directions and no Poké Balls so we could even catch anything for ourselves. We're screwed!" I raged.

Both of my friends looked at me like I'd gone mad.

"Zephi! Stop your rantin' for a second and jus' look at the big picture. We're Pokémon Trainers now! You could feel joy and wonder and awe or whatever in tarnation you said if you turned that frown upside down and embraced the fact that we got what we always wanted. That's what's real important, Zeph," Lara explained.

I took Lara's carefully-worded explanation to heart and really thought about our predicament. Lara was 100% right, as always. It was only the state of mind that I'd put myself into that made me feel so hopeless.

_C'mon, Zephi! _I thought insistently, _You're turning into an Angsty Sue! Pick your spirits up and FAST!_

"Okay, everyone! Let's find a way out of Mt. Coronet so we can find a Mart to buy Poké Balls in the next town. Then we can actually catch Pokémon. Sound good?" I asked.

"Well, it's about all we can do right now. But how are we gonna catch Pokémon if we have no Pokémon?" Lara pointed out.

Hmm. That was a bit of a dilemma.

"Don't worry, you guys! I can share. This little guy will be all three of our Pokémon until you two can catch something," Evelyn offered, signaling to her Egg.

"That thing could take ages to hatch, though. Let's just head for the next town right now and figure out the details later," I argued.

"Hey, hey, hold on to your Ponytas there, guys. Do we even have any money to buy Poké Balls at all?" Lara said suddenly.

Aw, shoot.

"My wallet is on my desk. At home," I grumbled.

"Mine, too," Evelyn admitted.

"I have mine, but I'm not exactly sure how much is in it. Probably only enough to buy a single Poké Ball. If even," Lara said.

"Maybe our Pokédexes can give us some advice," Evelyn though aloud, reaching for her small handheld device. "Oh, wow, fine thing. These have Poké Ball key chains on them, but no real Poké Balls."

"What?" I yelped, grabbing my own. "Evelyn! These aren't key chains! These are Poké Balls - real ones! They're in travel mode. Here, untie yours and press the centre button."

Evelyn did as she was asked and the Poké Ball blew up to full size in her hand. Her face shone.

"Yes! We're all set! Let's go catch something with them, then. Mt. Coronet is just crawling with good Pokémon. Let's split up and search."

The three of us disbanded, promising not to go far so we wouldn't lose each other. I think we were all just hoping we'd get lucky and catch a wild Pokémon by surprise, seeing as we had no Pokémon to weaken them with in the first place.

I walked around the cave, which was actually surprisingly dark for daytime, and was forced to feel my way along, groping in front of me for any rocks or obstacles. The deeper I went, the darker it became, and soon, I couldn't see at all. I stopped walking and glanced around in confusion. I realized that I had walked into a cave inside a cave, if that makes any sense. It was really cold in there and I found myself shivering so much that I had to sit down.

But the rocks in the cavern were really slippery with ice and I slid right off onto the cold cave ground.

"Ow! Damn it!" I cursed as I fished out my Pokedex.

The little lights on the device helped to light up the cavern a little and the moment I looked straight ahead, I almost had a heart attack. A giant grin stared back at me out of the darkness. I screamed so loudly that I think I busted a vocal cord, then tried to scramble up off my ass, slipping and sliding so much that I fell right back down again.

Fearing the worst, I curled up in a fetal position and just lay there for a bit.

"H-Hello? Is there anyone there?" I called tentatively.

In response, there came a moaning sound from on the other side of the cave. A wave of guilt washed over me. Had I hurt someone or something because of my flailing?

"Whoever you are... are you okay?" I asked, still curled up.

More moaning. I decided that perhaps I'd incapacitated someone and I'd have to go see if they were okay myself. I got up, more careful of the ice this time so I wouldn't fall again, and made my way over to the source of the moaning with my Pokédex outstretched. A peered behind a rock and saw an injured Snorunt lying pitifully on the ground. Ironically, its characteristically large grin remained plastered on its face, even though anyone could see it was in pain.

My heart went out to the little Pokémon. I must've hit it when I was freaking out and flung it over here. Now it couldn't move, the poor thing. What made me feel worst was, it was looking at me with this sense of security in its eyes, as if it expected me to help it.

_Well,_ I thought, _If it wants me to help it, then help it I shall._

I reached down to pick it up and it didn't resist, although it did wince a little and moan again when I picked it up. I quickly shifted it so I was cradling it in the crook of my left arm, not wanting to hurt it further. I held my Pokédex out in front of me to light the way and it immediately lit up and began to talk.

**_Snorunt, the Snow Hat Pokémon. Snorunt primarily inhabits very snowy regions. It has long been said that any home visited by a Snorunt will be blessed with good fortune._**

Well, in that case, I must have wandered closer to the Snowpoint exit than I thought. I called out for Evelyn and Lara so I could regain my bearings, and the answering calls sounded distant. I panicked.

"Marco!" I yelled.

"Polo!" came the response.

Man, the game that had annoyed me so much as a kid was now saving my life. Who knew? Playing Marco Polo, I eventually found myself back to where Evelyn and Lara were waiting impatiently.

"Zephi! Where did you go? We were-" Evelyn broke off when she saw what I carried in my arms.

"Aww! That poor Pokémon! What happened to it? Did you catch it?" she asked.

The thought really hadn't occurred to me. It was a wild Pokémon. It was weak. That was the time to throw a Poké Ball and I very conveniently had an empty one just waiting to be filled. At least, that's what I had assumed at the time. I set the Snorunt down gently, removed the Poké Ball from my Pokédex, blew it up, and tossed it at the Snorunt.

All I can say is that the unexpected happened.

Instead of the Poké Ball opening up and the Snorunt disappearing inside, a purple balloon with an "x" for a mouth popped out in a flash of red light.

"Floon!" it cried.


	3. One Last Little Road Block

Why hadn't we thought to look inside the damn Poke Balls?

I was now the proud owner of a Drifloon.

Judging by my friends' expressions, I could tell they hadn't yet released their Pokémon, probably still believing their Poké Balls to be empty. In unison, Evelyn and Lara blew up their Poké Balls and threw them, each revealing very different looking Pokémon.

Evelyn's Ball produced a snow tree Pokémon with a white body and green snow-frosted leaves.

"Snover!" it crowed.

Lara's Ball yielded a orange weasel Pokémon with two small tails and a white stripe down its stomach.

"Buizel!" it chirped.

Huh. I decided to let my Pokédex investigate the two Pokémon.

_**Snover, the Frost Tree Pokémon. Snover live mainly on snowy mountains with little human contact, but are known to approach people out of curiosity. Buizel, the Sea Weasel Pokémon. It stores air in the sacs on its neck and uses them as flotation devices, and swims by spinning its two tails like a propeller.**_

Evelyn and Lara looked fondly at their Pokémon and I could tell they were happy with Professor Carolina's choices. I have to say, I was pretty satisfied myself. I glanced to my Drifloon and stuck my Pokédex at it, determined to find out more about my first Pokémon.

_**Drifloon, the Balloon Pokemon. Drifloon is filled with air and can either expand or shrink to express its feelings. It also likes damp weather.**_

That was good to know. But now, onto more important information.

"What are its moves at its current experience level?" I wondered aloud.

I knew that every Pokémon needed more experience to perform stronger and more complex moves, so I wanted to figure out what the basics were that my currently nameless Drifloon could learn.

_First things first_, I thought, _let's name my Drifloon_.

Hmmm... Balloon... Loon... a... Luna! But then, what if my Drifloon was a guy? I decide to ask it to see for myself because, after all, it was obvious that Pokémon could speak English if they could understand the moves that their Trainers wanted them to use.

"Hey, Drifloon, make some noise or something if you're a girl," I told it.

It just stared at me with its little black dot eyes. I wondered how well this would work out after all.

"Well, then, make a noise if you're a guy," I said hopefully.

"Drifloo!" it cooed.

My Drifloon was officially a dude, and that meant I surely couldn't call him Luna.

"What about Lunar?" I asked my Drifloon.

"Floon! Drifloon!" he floated at me and started pulling at my shirt with his little tendrils.

I took his response to be a yes.

"Lunar it is, then," I said finality.

"Aw, I think givin' your Pokémon nicknames is too cute! I wanna come up with a name for this little one, too!" Lara gushed.

"Ugh, I don't," Evelyn scoffed. "I just think it's lame. Snover, you're happy just being Snover, right?"

"Snover!" it agreed defiantly.

I laughed despite myself. Professor Carolina had certainly picked the perfect Pokemon for Evelyn. I swear, if her Snover could cross its arms like Evelyn was right now, they would be twins.

While Lara was pondering nicknames for her Buizel, I regarded the injured Snorunt, still nestled in the crook of my arm. It seemed to have fallen asleep. It's breathing was calm and slow and every so often a small snore would escape it. It really was adorable. I needed to get it healed at a Pokémon Centre right away; it didn't deserve to suffer.

I faced my friends. "Guys, I really think we need to head to Eterna City for the Pokémon Centre. This part of Mt. Coronet is really thin, so the Eterna exit is probably close. From looking at maps, I know that once we get out of Mt. Coronet, Eterna City is right there."

Lara and Evelyn agreed wholeheartedly, so we recalled our Pokémon and continued west through the mountain.

The whole journey took a bit longer than I'd expected, and when we finally fell out the Eterna exit of Mt. Coronet, our legs felt like lead and we were starving. Even worse, it had started to rain, and we were forced to run to the Pokémon Centre to avoid getting soaked.

Crashing through the doors of the Centre in a soggy rush, the stares of many people were directed on us as we hurried up to the front desk where Eterna's Nurse Joy was waiting.

"What's the hurry, girls?" Nurse Joy asked, a moment before she saw the Snorunt.

"Oh, I see," the Nurse corrected herself, then she turned to me. "Is it yours?"

"N-No," I stammered. "It's wild. I found it and thought it would be a good idea to bring it here."

"You made the right choice," Nurse Joy assured me with a smile. "Now, let's see what I can do for it."

I carefully handed the Snorunt to Nurse Joy, being careful not to hurt it.

"From what I can tell at the moment, it looks like this Snorunt is going to be just fine. We'll call you when we're finished," Nurse Joy told me.

I nodded my thanks, then my friends and I went to go sit in the waiting room where we were greeted with a shocking surprise.

"Mom!" Evelyn, Lara, and I all yelped in unison.

* * *

><p>It turned out that my mother and Lara's weren't here to take us home and ground us for the rest of our lives, but to apologize for being so ignorant to our motives instead. They had even brought us backpacks of fresh clothes, sleeping bags, and travel food. To be honest, I was incredibly glad that Lara and I had made things right with our mothers and it was good to feel that we could come back to Celestic Town any time without having to sneak around.<p>

Evelyn, on the other hand, was not so lucky. We weren't quite out of the woods yet. Her mother was just as stubborn as her daughter and, unfortunately, her mind was set on dragging Evelyn back to Celestic Town with her to serve some serious punishment for what she considered "running away from home".

"But, Mom! You don't understand! I can't just crawl back to tiny Celestic Town - I have a Pokédex and my very own Snover now! I'm a licensed Pokémon Trainer and Trainers don't just sit around on their asses and serve punishment for travelling and doing something with their lives. Plus, then, my Snover will never grow up to be the powerful, fearsome Abomasnow that I know it can be!" Evelyn ranted with passion.

Evelyn's speech had seemed to be working on her bullheaded mother, until the part about how big and strong her Snover would grow up to be. Evelyn's mother flew off the handle about how dangerous Pokémon could be and started a hardcore yelling fight between her and her daughter.

Trying to cover my ears, avoid the stares of irritated people, and resist being sucked into the fight all at the same time, I barely saw the man in the white fedora at the end of the Centre's waiting room get up from his seat and start striding over to the feuding family. I don't think anyone really noticed him until he smoothly stepped into the fight and began arguing quietly, but effectively in Evelyn's favour.

"Excuse me, Miss. I do believe we have a bit of a misunderstanding here about the convenience of Pokémon. Have you taken a minute to think that maybe her powerful Pokémon could serve as impenetrable protectors for your daughter? Nothing could harm her if her Pokémon were keeping her under guard. That is all you're worried about, is it not?"

Evelyn's eyes shone as she looked at the mysterious man, silently thanking him for intruding. Evelyn's mother stopped for a second to comprehend what just happened, then seemed unsure whether to blow up at the man for butting in or listen to his advice and let her daughter be.

"What if her Pokémon turn on her?" Evelyn's mother protested lamely.

"No worries, Miss. Anyone can see that your daughter will be a strong, fearless Trainer that will have no trouble controlling any type of Pokémon that she captures. She will make a wonderful Pokémon Trainer," the man consoled the defeated woman.

Evelyn's mother could see that any other feeble argument she tried to make would be futile, so she admitted defeat, and with an angry "Fine! See if I care!", she ran out of the Pokémon Centre. My mom looked awkwardly after her, then gave me a hug and wished me well, hurrying out after Evelyn's mother. Lara's mother stuck around a bit longer to thank the mysterious man for helping Evelyn out, then made a huge fuss over Lara, which made her blush with embarrassment. Then she surprised everyone by turning to Evelyn.

"Don't worry, Evie, honey. I brought an extra pack for you, too. I knew that your momma would try to talk you outta goin' on your journey and all, but I knew you'd convince her in the end. So, I brought extra supplies for you, too, knowin' she wouldn't think to bring any."

Evelyn beamed at Lara's mother, looking the happiest she had yet since we'd started as Trainers.

"Thank you so much! I don't know how to-" Evelyn was cut off as Lara's mother swept her into a warm hug.

"You be good, too, dear. Train lots!" Lara's mom called to me after she'd let Evelyn go.

Then she bustled out of the Pokémon Centre. That left us with the mysterious man that helped Evelyn win her argument and a waiting room full of people that thought we were pests.

It was at this moment that we felt our Pokémon journey really began.


	4. When Pokémon Are Stolen

I took my first good look at the mystery man and I realized with a start that he was not a man after all. He looked to be about our age, but the way he dressed made him appear older. He wore a black button-up shirt and black jeans with white steel-toed boots to top off the look. He also had curiously silver hair half-hidden under a white fedora and silver wire-rimmed glasses. He completely lacked colour, I observed, except for an intricate pattern of miniature rubies embedded in a silver ring that he wore on his right hand. I looked to his left hand and was slightly disappointed to spot a simple silver watch.

Though he was only about as old as we were, he gave off the air of an experienced Trainer who knew his way around in the Pokémon World already. We could definitely learn a thing or two from him, I was sure.

Evelyn, as I had guessed, fell all over him.

"Oh, thank you so much! I would never have convinced my stupid mom without you! How will I ever be able to repay you?" she gushed.

The guy laughed and extended his hand to Evelyn.

"I think that's getting a little extreme. I'm Devin. Devin Powell. I'm fascinated by mystery and I travel all over the Pokémon World to investigate legends, lore and the like. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

Evelyn was only to eager to introduce herself to the handsome stranger.

"I'm Evelyn Summers. My goal is to become the Sinnoh League Champion, but then, I suppose there are hundreds of other Trainers with the same goal, so..." Evelyn trailed off, then smiled brightly. "I want to focus on forming a team around the strongest Pokémon possible to maximize that chance."

As Evelyn spoke, I watched Devin. He appeared to look interested, but I could see a faraway look in his eyes that suggested he wasn't all there.

"Do you dream of becoming the League Champion as well?" I asked politely.

He visibly snapped out of his trance.

"Uh, no, I-I'm not even a licensed Trainer," he admitted, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly.

This seemed to surprise Lara greatly, for her eyes widened and she began speaking in hushed tones, obviously afraid that not being licensed was a criminal offence.

"I-Isn't that illegal?" Lara gasped.

"Many people find it worthwhile to keep Pokémon as pets. You don't need a license to do that. It's not illegal to train Pokémon and keep them with you if you don't plan to challenge any Gyms or participate in any Contests. Basically, not being licensed means you can't register in the Pokémon League. In fact, the Pokémon I've collected are all special in some way, shape, or form," Devin explained.

"Everyone believes their own Pokémon are special," Lara said doubtfully.

"Well, come on outside, then, and I'll show you what I mean by 'special'," Devin challenged.

I was intrigued and it looked as if Evelyn was too (though that could be more because of her infatuation for him than because she wanted to see his Pokémon), but I don't think Lara was totally trusting of Devin yet. I guess it was smart of her to be wary, but still...

The four of us left the Pokémon Centre and walked to the edge of town. It had stopped raining by now, but the ground was still wet and mucky. We grimaced whenever we trod in one of the abundant mud puddles that littered the ground by mistake.

"Why so far away? It was okay to release your Pokémon where we were," I told Devin, confused by his motives.

"I don't want to attract attention to my Pokémon. As I said before, they're very special and I don't want to show them off where thieves could potentially see them," Devin said tersely.

Behind me, I heard Lara scoff dubiously.

"Okay, this place should be far enough away from prying eyes. I'll start with this one," Devin paused to unhook a red and white Poké Ball from his belt. "Go, Torch!"

A slug Pokémon made out of red magma with a crystal-encrusted shell burst from the Ball with a cry of "Cargo!". This one looked interesting at least.

_**Magcargo, the Lava Pokémon. Magcargo lives primarily in volcanic regions and occasionally emits the lava from its back that circles its body.**_

Wait. The picture on my Pokédex showed the Magcargo having a solid, brown and rocky shell, not one studded with crystal shards. Maybe that's what Devin meant by 'special'.

"I think you've seen enough. Return, Torch!" Devin swapped Poké Balls with surprising quickness. "Now, Scar!"

A large bird made entirely of metal emerged from this Poké Ball. It emitted a terrifying "Skarmory!" and stood, poised for battle. I whipped out my Pokédex.

_**Skarmory, the Armor Bird Pokémon. Skarmory's body is covered with a steel-like armor and it can fly at speeds of over 180mph.**_

"What's special about this one?" Evelyn asked eagerly.

"Nothing that meets the eye," Devin said secretively. "But this Skarmory is much faster than your average Skarmory. And average Skarmorys are fast. He was raised by ninjas, so there isn't much that's faster than Scar. I'll bet he can fly all the way to the desert on Route 228 and back here in about 10 minutes with no one on his back, whereas it would take other birds about a half hour or more."

"Now that's just plain silly!" Lara blurted. "You prove this astronomical assumption to us and then I'll believe you. Have your Skarmory fly all the way out there, pick up a mouthful of desert sand and fly back here in 10 minutes."

"Deal," Devin agreed. "Scar, you heard the lady. Do as you're asked!"

The Skarmory let out a battle cry and took off so fast that we were all blown back by the wind it left in its wake.

"Whoa!" Evelyn marveled, starry-eyed.

I glanced at her out of habit and noticed with a start that her Egg wasn't with her. She must have left it in the Pokémon Centre! Hang on, that meant...

"The Snorunt!" I shrieked, immediately turning around and booking it in the direction of the Pokémon Centre.

"My _Egg_!" Evelyn wailed, evidently realizing right after I had that her Egg was absent from her side.

The two of us raced back to the heart of Eterna City while Lara decided that there was no way in hell that she was staying there, _alone_, with the show-off. She ran flat-out after us, her blond braid streaming out behind her somewhat comically.

Evelyn, Lara, and I burst through the doors of the Eterna City Pokemon Centre for the second time that day, getting more glares from the people in the waiting room. I ran to the counter.

"Did my Snorunt finish yet?" I gasped, out of breath.

"Your Snorunt?" Nurse Joy seemed confused. "I sent that Snorunt out with its Trainer just a few minutes ago."

"What?" I yelped. "That was _my _Snorunt!"

The Snorunt wasn't technically_ mine_, but it seemed easier to refer to the small ice-type Pokémon as my own for the time being.

Nurse Joy put her hand to her mouth and gasped.

"Oh, no, I'm so sorry! I'll call Officer Jenny right now and report a stolen Pokemon!"

Nurse Joy hurried back into the hospital ward, following closely by her worried-looking Chansey. I sat down in a chair by the door, incredulous that this had happened to me of all people. I had only been sitting for a moment, when I heard a scream from the waiting room. I ran in, expecting the worse, but only saw Evelyn bawling in a chair.

"What's wrong? What happened?" I hissed, exasperated, sure that it had been Evelyn who screamed.

"My E-E-Egg..." she hiccupped. "It's g-gone!"

I could not believe our rotten luck. Did we have a Pokémon thief on our hands?

I hastily informed Evelyn of the recent events. "The Snorunt's been taken, too. Nurse Joy's calling Officer Jenny as we speak. Despite all that, though, I think we need to go out and look for our own stolen Pokémon."

Picking up Lara at the door, we ran out of the Pokémon Centre yet again in search of our lost Pokémon.

Eterna City, however, was rather large and the chances of finding a tiny Snorunt and a Pokémon Egg were about as good as finding a needle in a haystack. It was because our chances were so slim that I was disbelieving when I first heard the familiar moaning.

"Could it be...?" I wondered, knowing and not caring that I sounded clichéd.

"What is it, Zeph?" Evelyn asked hopefully.

I listened a bit harder this time and knew, without a doubt, that I had located the Snorunt.

"I hear my Snorunt!" I exclaimed gleefully. "Follow me guys, but quietly."

The moaning was coming from an abandoned and overgrown lot a ways behind the Pokémon Centre. The perfect hideout for a thief. My friends and I snuck along the fence that bordered the lot, trying to subtly peek over the top without potentially being spotted. Reaching a hole in the fence, we dropped silently to our knees and slowly peered through. On the other side of the lot, half-hidden behind the large building occupying the space, was a tough-looking boy and a small Pokémon. My Snorunt! There was also a barely visible white object next to the boy.

"My-!" Evelyn started to squeal, but I clapped my hand over her mouth to silence her.

"Do you want to get us discovered?" I growled.

Unfortunately for us, the thief must've had, like, 30/20 hearing or something, because he saw us trying desperately to hide behind our gaping hole.

"Hey, you over there! What're you guys doin' here?" the guy snarled.

Being cowardly would get us absolutely nowhere, so my friends and I climbed through the hole and faced up the thief. He looked older than we were, but not by a lot. I would guess him to be about seventeen or eighteen, at least. He stepped closer, menacingly, until he was right in our faces.

"I said, what are you pretty girls doin' in a place like this, huh?"

His breath smelled awful, like he had been smoking something illegal. I felt a cold sweat break out on my back and I could guess that Lara and Evelyn felt the same way. I really didn't like the way this was going.

Without warning, the creep reached out and grabbed Evelyn by her shirt collar. His choice made sense - Evelyn was the most...desirable...of the three of us. Evelyn squeaked in surprise, but shut up when he covered her mouth with a dirty hand. Her eyes glistened with panic and her skin that usually glowed a healthy tan was whiter than the sand on a Sunyshore beach.

Just then, for the first time, the little Snorunt seemed to acknowledge my presence and, with a happy squeal, began to run towards me. Its captor, however, put the poor Pokémon out of commission with one swift kick. It flew into a trash can and collapsed, unconscious, on the ground.

"My Snorunt!" I cried, outraged. "How could you do something so horrible?"

"Oh, so you're that bleeding heart I stole the puny thing from. Well, you can have the wimp back, see if I care. It turned out to be totally worthless anyway, no more than a baby, really."

I glared at the awful man, to enraged to notice that Lara was uncomfortably aware of his hand slipping purposefully lower and lower down Evelyn's body. Lara jabbed me in the ribs and I suddenly noticed what I had not moments before. I let out a strangled noise in response. We were losing control of this situation at a rapidly increasing rate.

I figured that, if worst came to worst, Evelyn could struggle for a bit before submitting to the man's...desires...but I had no idea if that would be enough. He might even come for us afterward if he wasn't satisfied, who knew?

I knew things were going downhill, but even I didn't expect the chaos that would break out when the man eventually found Evelyn's fly.

_**A/N: Okay, I know I'm not keeping things especially 'G'-rated, but since, realistically, the Pokémon World would only be the human world (but with Pokémon) I thought I should include some sad, but true aspects of the human world that you wouldn't see in the Pokémon anime. So, sorry and stuff if you were offended or anything like that with my suggestive-ness. Plus, it was kinda coming to some down-on-their-luck, overcurious, and coincidentally female Pokémon Trainers.**_


	5. After the Fact

When I think about it, though, why _didn't_ I expect chaos?

Evelyn started screaming and struggling, trying desperately to kick the guy or do something to get him the hell away. Her screams were pointless though, for one of the man's hands was still firmly over her mouth. Lara immediately took action.

"Turbo, go! Water Gun on that heinous beast!" she screeched.

Her Buizel exploded out of its Poké Ball and, without hesitating, shot a forceful blast of water from its mouth. Evelyn's captor was hit in the chest by the stream and knocked back a couple of feet, but he wasn't giving up.

_He must be really determined. Or really high. Or both, _I thought, feeling panic beginning to set in.

"Go, Lunar! Help Turbo and use Constrict!" I yelled out the first move that came to mind as I threw my Drifloon's Poké Ball.

It burst out with a determined "Floon!" and launched itself at the man with its tendrils outstretched. It wrapped them around the man's neck and desperately tried to pull him off Evelyn. Once again, the Drifloon's somewhat pitiful assault only temporarily distracted the man before he cast Lunar aside as well.

Angering the man with our Pokémon only seemed to worsen the situation. Frustrated now, the man pinned both of Evelyn's flailing arms behind her back with his other arm and pushed her flat against the ground. He used the hand that had been covering her mouth to further...explore...while he kept her quiet by practically eating her face in a grotesque, twisted kiss. Lara and I were to the point where this was getting to be so much that we were about to do something stupid, like throw ourselves into the mess to try and help Evelyn.

That's when it happened.

From behind us, we heard a familiar yell of shock and disbelief, then a furious voice call out.

"You goddamn bastard, get off that girl this second! Ryder, show him we mean business! Metronome!"

There was a flash of light to our left and a flying egg Pokémon flew onto the scene. It waggled its finger and Lara and I immediately knew shit was about to go down. The Pokémon seemed to charge up power for a moment, then from its mouth shot an incredible torrent of water that made Buizel's Water Gun seem like hardly a drop. The man flew across the lot when the mass of water made contact with his shoulder and, due to the force, Evelyn rolled a couple a feet further and just lay there. We had been rescued! Lara and I whirled around to face our hero.

Devin Powell. I should've guessed.

Suddenly, there was a huge gust of wind and a steel bird dropped out of the sky beside Devin. It gently spat a mouthful of steaming sand on the ground and Devin grinned smugly.

"Right on time."

* * *

><p>Upon rushing Evelyn and the unconscious Snorunt to the Pokémon Centre, we were met by Officer Jenny, where we spend the rest of the day answering numerous (and many extremely awkward) questions about what had happened there in the abandoned lot. Evelyn, for the most part, was fine, though she had multiple bruises (some in unmentionable places) and was, as some of us had earlier assumed, deeply traumatized.<p>

The important thing was, the man had not succeeded. But it had been close. Too close. If Devin hadn't arrived when he did, things probably would have been much different. So, I guess I could say we were lucky.

Later on, I decided that it was time to formally catch the Snorunt so that it would truly be _my_ Pokémon. But when it came time to throw a Poké Ball at it, it took one terrified look at the red and white contraption and cowered behind me leg. It seemed to be scared of a Poké Ball. I let the issue slide for now and allowed it to ride on my shoulder. It was small enough, after all.

Now came the issue of naming it. Guy or girl? Once again, I had no idea. Yeesh, I guess naming would have to wait as well.

* * *

><p>By the time we left the Pokémon Centre, it was dark outside and we began to look for a place to stay the night. There was no way we were camping, for fear that we'd be jumped - <em>again<em> - and staying at the Pokémon Centre would just provoke more questions that we didn't care to answer. We were kind of stuck.

Evelyn was another worry. She'd answered every question given to her by Officer Jenny in a monotone and, at this moment, she was walking quietly beside us as we roamed aimlessly around, her face set.

"Ev, what's wrong? You're lookin' more upset than a Charmander in a rainstorm. Is something botherin' you?" Lara asked anxiously.

"I'm fine," Evelyn replied in a flat tone.

Devin, who had stayed with us this entire time, stopped suddenly and pulled me aside for a moment, leaving Lara to wait with Evelyn.

"Why don't you come and crash at my house tonight? You've already explained why camping and staying at the Pokémon Centre won't be ideal, so you haven't got many other options. I live right here in Eterna, so it's about as convenient as you're gonna get. What do you say?" Devin asked me.

I thought about it for a second, but since it was getting darker by the minute, there really wasn't much to think about.

"Thank you, Devin, I think we'll take you up on that offer. Who knows, it might be just the thing to boost Evelyn's spirits a little," I half-smiled at him and he looked at me in confusion.

I didn't stop to ask what he was confused about. I strode over to where Lara and a dejected-looking Evelyn were waiting and illustrated our plans for tonight point-blank.

"Guys, we're staying at Devin's tonight."

I was overjoyed to see a flicker of happiness in Evelyn's otherwise expressionless eyes. Lara, on the other hand, was pissed.

"Why didn't you clear that with us first, Zephi? Do our opinions even matter? I don't even like the guy and you know it!" she argued angrily.

"Of course you matter!" I yelled, getting frustrated as well. "But we don't have any other options! We have to go with this. You should be grateful that Devin even offered!"

Lara shook her head, her eyes flaming.

"Fine. Whatever you say, Master Zephi," she snapped, turning away.

Having Lara pissed at me was the last thing I wanted, but for now, I had to deal. To be honest, I didn't even know why she was so mad. Devin was a great guy. She had no reason to hate him as much as she claimed she did. I figured she was feeling so bitchy because she was tired, that's all. Devin led the way to his house, Evelyn and I right behind him. Lara hung back a couple of feet, fuming silently.

Devin's house turned out to be a cozy condo on the edge of town with a living room, kitchen, single bedroom, and a nice deck out back. It was none too large, but Lara, Evelyn and I made ourselves comfortable in the living room all the same, draping two sleeping bags on the floor and one on the couch. Glancing at the clock on the wall, I realized it was almost midnight. Yikes. But then, this was technically still the first day of our Pokémon journey and it had certainly been a long day. No wonder we were dead tired.

Turning off the lights and clambering gratefully into our sleeping bags, we immediately fell into a deep slumber.

* * *

><p>I awoke early the next morning, just as the first light of dawn was filtering through the living room window. Feeling completely slept out, I got up quietly, not wanting to wake up Lara, who still wasn't talking to me, or Evelyn, who wasn't talking to anyone, period.<p>

I figured I would go sit on the deck and watch the sunrise, but when I got to the sliding door that led to the backyard, I stopped abruptly. Devin was already sitting serenely in a deck chair, reading a very large book. Apparently, I hadn't been quiet enough or something, because Devin turned around and leapt up from his chair when he saw me through the glass door.

Awkward. I started to run away, but I didn't get very far before the sliding door opened and Devin appeared.

"Zephi. Come on out, I don't mind. The sunrise is beautiful from out back," he whispered.

I really didn't want to intrude, but I couldn't just rudely decline either, so I went out to the deck and sat down, feeling a little stiff and uncomfortable about being alone out here with Devin. I felt it even more so when Devin scooted his own chair right next to mine and set his book down. I fidgeted nervously, but he didn't seem to notice.

"So, Zephi, when you said coming here would boost Evelyn's spirits yesterday, what exactly did you mean by that?" he questioned, slightly embarrassed to have to ask.

I stared at him. He seriously didn't realize?

"Um, isn't it obvious? Evelyn has a _huge_ crush on you. I was hoping that staying here with you would boost her spirits, but I guess not..." I trailed off, realizing how rude that could've potentially sounded. I looked down in embarrassment, hoping that he wouldn't be offended.

He frowned, seeming surprised, but troubled by this news at the same time.

"Oh," he finally said. "I didn't realize."

I couldn't help it. I laughed out loud.

"Sorry!" I blubbered.

Sigh. The rudeness never stops. Thankfully, he laughed too, though I noticed it was a bit strained.

"It's just that...well, I don't like Evelyn in that way," he admitted.

"If you don't, you don't," I told him, not getting what the big deal was. "You don't have to. It's not like you're getting married or anything. What's the big deal?"

"I didn't want it to be her, that's all!" he blurted out, frustration coming off him in waves.

"Didn't want it to be her? What to be her? What's 'it'?" I cried, totally lost.

"You just don't get it. Never mind. Forget I said anything."

Devin turned the other way in his chair and picked up his book again, signifying that the conversation was over.

I was a bit hurt. Not because I'd been outright snubbed by Devin, but because now _no one_ was speaking to me. I glared at a tree in the distance. Maybe I was the bitch and that's why everyone currently hated me.

The tense, charged silence that Devin had left between us was cut short by an excited squeal coming from the living room.

_Yes! Excitement! _I thought optimistically, _Maybe everyone will forget they're mad at me and we can all be friends again._

Devin and I ran into the house where Evelyn was grinning from ear to ear and holding her quaking Egg in her arms.

It was hatching!

The four of us gathered around, stuffing ourselves into Devin's small living room to watch the miracle of a hatching Pokémon Egg. The Egg twitched and wiggled and there was a unanimous gasp as the first piece of the shell cracked off.

We watched, spellbound, as the Egg came apart and revealed Evelyn's new Pokémon.

_**A/N: Yum. Cliffies. Gotta love 'em. Anyway, R & R as always, faithful readers! Reviews make my life, so I'll love you forever if you leave one! :3**_


	6. The Life of a Pokémon Trainer

The Eggshell broke away entirely with one loud crack and, flopping in the middle of the living room, was a grey and blue fish Pokémon. It looked frail and sickly.

"A _Magikarp_? What the hell is this? I wanted a tough, powerful cave Pokémon like a Nosepass or Bronzor or something! Anything but a Magikarp!" Evelyn wailed.

"What are you talking about?" Devin said disbelievingly. "That's a Feebas! They're incredibly rare and-"

"What does it do? Is it strong? Ooh, maybe it isn't so worthless after all!" Evelyn said excitedly.

"Well, right now, it can't do much, but-" Devin was cut off again by a ranting Evelyn.

"What, what, what? Now you're telling me it sucks again? Grrr, I hate it already!"

I frowned at Evelyn. What was her problem? Saying you hated your baby Pokémon was like saying you hated the baby you'd just given birth to. It was just wrong. Lara seemed to be thinking along the same lines, because she called Evelyn on her behaviour. Leave it to Lara to serve as the step-in mother. And I mean that in the best way possible.

"Evelyn! This Feebas is like your baby! You can't hate it. Stop being such a brat and deal with your new Pokémon, or else trade it," Lara lectured firmly.

Evelyn's eyes lit up.

"Yes, Lara! That's what I'll do! If it's as rare as Devin says it is, then I'll surely get something strong and cool in exchange. Thanks, Lara, you're the best!"

Evelyn gave Lara and quick hug and then flew out the door before any of us could get a word in edgewise.

"I'll follow her, make sure she doesn't get in any more trouble," Lara said hastily, rushing out the door after Evelyn.

It took me a moment to register what had just happened. I sighed as I realized that I was alone with Devin. Again. But this time, there was no one else in the entire house.

* * *

><p>"Evelyn! Where are you goin' with that Feebas?" Lara called, catching up to Evelyn, who was wandering the streets of Eterna City.<p>

"I told you, I'm going to trade it. How would I go about trading a Pokémon, I wonder? Where are there a lot of Trainers in Eterna City?" Evelyn turned to Lara, her face a question mark.

"I can't believe Imma-Be-A-Champion Evelyn just asked that question. The Gym, of course, silly!" Lara teased.

If Evelyn's eyes could get any brighter, they'd be on fire.

"Oh my Arceus! Right! I was going to challenge that Gym at one point as well! Why not now?"

Evelyn started to walk in the direction she believed the Gym to be, when Lara yanked her back by her shirt collar.

"Oh, I'll tell you why not now. You've never battled with your Snover - ever. It's probably so inexperienced, the Gym Leader will take it down in one hit!" Lara scolded.

Evelyn looked hurt. "But it's a Grass-type Gym! I have the type advantage!"

Lara glared at her and Evelyn knew that the country girl was right.

"Fine!" she griped. "I'll train first. But promise me that we won't go anywhere until I've challenged that Gym!"

"I imagine that Zephi'll wanna challenge that Gym, too. She's got a _double_ type advantage. Snorunt is Ice-type and Lunar is Ghost and Flying-type. Though I dunno if it knows any Flying moves."

"Well, what about you, Lara? Don't you want to challenge the Gym?" Evelyn queried.

Lara looked sharply at the brunette. "Don't forget, I still only have one Pokémon. You and Zeph both have two. Plus, Turbo's at a disadvantage in a Grass-type Gym."

"Oh, right."

It was obvious that Evelyn felt badly about Lara lagging behind.

"Why don't we go out and catch you another Pokémon right now, then?" Evelyn offered, hoping to make amends.

Lara smiled. "I was hoping you'd ask. Let's go!"

* * *

><p>"Since you and I both know that this is pointless and extremely awkward, I vote that we go hit the town and do something productive," Devin spoke up after a long, uncomfortable silence.<p>

I was only too happy to oblige.

"Sure. Yeah. That sounds good. Let's hit the town," I agreed quickly.

Walking with Devin was a little easier than sitting uneasily in his living room, trying not to stare at him for fear that he'd be creeped out or something to that effect.

"Do you happen to know where the Gym is in this town?" I asked, trying to make small talk.

"Yeah, of course. I live here, after all. Do you think you're ready to challenge it?" Devin asked, mildly surprised.

"Well, no, not yet. I want to train first. But soon, for sure," I replied.

"Until then, let's go train together and get you stronger. Then we can get you your first Gym badge!" Devin said with enthusiasm.

The prospect was truly exciting, I'll admit. But before I could answer, I suddenly remembered something that I still had to do.

"Naming!" I blurted.

"What?" Devin asked, bewildered.

"I have to name my Snorunt. I've decided that it's officially mine now, even though it has a pathological fear of Poké Balls. That's why it sits on my shoulder or I carry it," I explained.

From its comfortable seat in my backpack, my Snorunt let out a happy cry of "Sno!". It was such a cute Pokémon; whenever I was upset, it cheered me up with the perpetual grin that never left its face.

"Why are you having so much trouble? Naming your Pokémon should not be something worth killing yourself over. Just name it what first comes to mind," Devin advised.

I knew instinctively that I would _have_ to name it something that had to do with moaning. Its moaning had helped me discover it and find it again after it had been stolen. It only made sense to name it with that in mind. Just then, the perfect name for my Snorunt hit me hard like a speeding Rapidash.

"Mona!" I yelled triumphantly.

Devin looked at me quizzically, but he didn't know the reason behind the name and it wasn't worth telling him, so I just simply told him that I liked the name. Then I realized the obvious and I deflated a little.

"Oh... My Snorunt could still be a guy... And a guy can't be called Mona!" I complained.

"Why don't you ask it, see if it likes the name? Chances are, if it likes the very feminine name 'Mona', then it's a girl," Devin suggested.

I took his advice and lifted my Snorunt out of my backpack to place in front of me.

"What do you think of being called Mona?" I asked it, hoping it would like the name as much as I did.

It ran around once in a circle, then sat on my foot and grinned up at me. Then again, it was always grinning, so that didn't mean anything, did it? I looked to Devin for advice and saw that he was smiling and shaking his head.

"She loves it."

* * *

><p>The wild Pokémon that hung out around the edges of Eterna were mainly of the Grass-type, making it very easy for Evelyn to train her Snover. For Lara however, with her Water-type Buizel, it was not very easy to train in these grasses at all.<p>

"Wow, my Snover's improved so much !" Evelyn said smugly. "We're defeating wild Pokémon in just one Icy Wind now. I think we're just about ready to take on the Gym!"

Lara nodded and petted her Buizel. "This little guy's coming along as well. Sonicboom and Quick Attack make training amongst Grass-types easier. I'd still like to catch another Pokémon before I even think about challenging the Gym, though."

Just then, a panicked voice could be heard coming from the direction of Eterna Forest.

"No, Skorupi! That's not... Yikes! Aaaaagh, someone help me!"

The owner of the voice was obviously in trouble. Worried, Evelyn and Lara ran to where they suspected the voice was coming from and saw a girl with a light brown ponytail sticking out the side of her head trying to ward off a vicious-looking scorpion Pokémon. The girl looked up and, upon seeing Lara and Evelyn, smiled wearily with relief.

"Can one of you please get my Skorupi to stop trying to attack me?" she asked in desperation.

Lara, who had done a fair bit of Pokémon research before she'd become a Trainer as well, took one look at the Skorupi and shook her head sadly.

"Sorry, hon, but it's far too high-leveled for someone of your skill-level to control properly," Lara admitted. "No offense or anything. Hey, it might be better if you challenged Eterna's Gym and earned a badge - you do have a double type advantage after all."

The girl didn't look offended, but she did look very frustrated indeed.

"I've tried! It just won't listen to me and I've lost so much pride and sleep over this thing that I just don't think it's worth it anymore. I wish I could trade it, but no one wants a arrogant Skorupi. Not like I blame them, but... Um, excuse me? Are you alright?"

The girl stared at Evelyn, who was now grinning from ear to ear. Lara had a bad feeling about what her friend's intentions were.

"Oh, I'm alright. I'm great, actually. I have a Pokemon that I want to trade for your Skorupi," Evelyn bubbled.

Lara's eyes widened and she grabbed Evelyn's shirt sleeve.

"Have you gone mad? That Skorupi is really temperamental; don't forget, you don't have any badges either!" she hissed.

"Lara, I know what I'm doing! Skorupi's going to be my Pokémon, not yours, so please stay out of my business!" Evelyn pleaded.

Lara made a face. "Fine. But don't blame me if you hate it."

The girl's face lit up and she looked hopeful.

"Really? What kind of a Pokémon is it?"

Evelyn reached into her backpack and pulled out a Poké Ball. "I'll show you. Go, Feebas!"

The Pokémon burst from the ball in a flash of red light and sat there, staring at the girl's Skorupi warily. Evelyn was afraid that the girl wouldn't be satisfied with such a pathetic Pokémon, but she needn't have worried.

"Oh my goodness, it's so cute! Are you sure you want to trade it? I would love to have it, but I'm not so sure you want to give away something so valuable for something so... aggravating," the girl gushed.

Evelyn breathed a huge sigh of relief. "I am _certain_. I like your Skorupi's spunk and obvious power and to me, this Feebas is just a waste of a Poké Ball. Let's trade!"

Lara furrowed her brow, looking frustrated, but she didn't say anything. Evelyn recalled her Feebas and held its Poké Ball to the girl. The other Trainer did the same with her Skorupi's Ball.

"It's only fair to tell you before we trade that it only just hatched, so it will likely be pretty weak," Evelyn said sheepishly.

"Oh, that's perfectly fine. I'd like to raise it from practically a baby, anyway. It will help us to grow and flourish together!" the girl replied happily.

With that, the two girls shook hands and traded Poké Balls, while Lara leaned sulkily against a tree trunk.

"Enjoy your new Skorupi! I hope you'll have better luck with it than I did. My name's Sophie, by the way. Maybe we'll cross paths again sometime. Thank you and goodbye!" Sophie called out as she began to walk back to Eterna.

Evelyn waved after Sophie, then turned to Lara and juggled her new Pokémon's Poké Ball in one hand smugly, an eyebrow raised.

"See, Lara? I got a powerhouse for a weakling. It's all about finding the right Trainer to trade with."

Lara muttered something inaudible in response and kicked the tree she was leaning against. Its branches shook and leaves flaked off.

"Oops," Lara said aloud, genuinely feeling bad for hurting nature because she was angry.

Her anger didn't last long. The shaking trunk dislodged something higher up in the tree that fell out, landing right on Lara's head. She shrieked in surprise and darted forward. The thing fell off her head and bounced onto the ground, looking up at Lara with an astonished expression on its round purple face.

"It looks like you've found your next Pokémon, Lara!" Evelyn declared.

_**A/N: I thought I wouldn't possibly be able to come up with a good cliffhanger for this chapter, but I managed. Ha! Now you will be forced to read the next chapter when I finish it. As for reviews, it's a little slice of heaven when I see new ones. Even critical ones.**_


	7. Challenging Gardenia

"Agh, this is not going well. Mona's too weak. She can't even handle a wild Pokémon by herself. It's almost like she doesn't know _how_ to fight!" I vented, feeling more than a little upset at Mona's lack of skill at battling.

"Hey, remember, she's still a baby. She'll get it eventually, I'm sure. Look at the bright side, at least your Drifloon is doing well!" Devin tried to console me.

I perked up a little at that. It was true that Lunar had been succeeding against the wild Pokémon from around Eterna and I was confident that if we went to challenge the Gym right now, we would fare well.

"I think I want to try and challenge that Gym, now," I decided. "If worst comes to worst, I can get Mona to use an Icy Wind or two and it will be super-effective."

I was feeling pretty good about myself. Lunar was stealthy and he had the advantage of being able to float away quickly in a pinch. He was now able to strike swiftly, after only a bit of practice. Lunar, unlike Mona, had a real knack for battling. I released my Drifloon and knelt down in front of him so I matched him height-wise.

"Lunar, are you ready to take on Eterna's Gym?" I asked him.

"Drifloo. Drifloon!" he screeched.

We were all set. Gym-bound, Devin and I began to walk back to Eterna City, my heart set on obtaining my first Gym badge.

* * *

><p>Standing in front of the Gym about ten minutes later, I was practically drowning in a mixture of anxiety and excitement. I was practically quivering with conflicting feelings.<p>

"Are you okay? You look like you're about to strangle someone. You haven't changed your mind about challenging the Gym, have you?" Devin asked, slightly worried for my well-being, no doubt.

"Uh n-no! I'm fine, totally fine, absolutely, perfectly, normally fine. I've just never been in a Gym before, or met a Gym leader before, and certainly never battled one before! Devin, what if I fail?" I babbled.

"If you fail, you fail. No big deal. But I honestly don't think you'll fail. Your Lunar is pretty talented. I'm pretty sure he'll take care of things," Devin told me truthfully.

I thanked him for the encouragement, then took my first step ever into a Pokémon Gym.

"Zephi! Hey! I was just about to challenge the Gym as well! Since I got here first, though, you'll have to wait 'till I'm done until you can get a turn," Evelyn teased from her seat in the Gym's front room.

"Oh, Zephi-pie, you certainly missed a lot of excitement recently. Evelyn traded her Feebas and I caught another Pokémon! Wanna see it?" Lara asked.

"What?" I said helplessly.

This conversation was moving a little too fast for me.

"So, Evelyn traded for a new Pokémon and you caught one?" I clarified.

They both nodded in unison, but before I could ask any more questions, the door to the Gym's arena opened and Gardenia, the Eterna City Gym Leader herself, stepped out into the front room.

"Who was looking to challenge me?" she called out into the room.

Evelyn jumped up as fast as she would have if her ass were on fire.

"Me! Please! I was the one who wanted to challenge you!" she spluttered.

"Okay then. Please come into the arena with me. Any of your friends may come in as well to sit in the stands and watch, but only if they don't plan to challenge me as well," Gardenia said firmly.

Damn. That meant I'd be sitting out here straining my ears to listen to the fight rather than watch it. Lara, as I'd expected, followed Evelyn in. It appeared that she wasn't planning on challenging Gardenia today.

I settled down in a waiting chair, getting comfortable for the long wait. I tried listening for a while, but I couldn't hear anything whatsoever. I got discouraged after a while, so I began to get restless and fidget. There was no one else in the room except the receptionist, so I moved around in my chair, trying to get comfortable again, pulling my legs up, then curling up into a ball, then finally stretching my body out over all the chairs. The receptionist gave me a strange look, probably wondering if I realized I was in a public place.

Lying here, my mind began to wander back to when we'd just been sent out on our journey. I bolted upright as I remembered Professor Carolina's favour with a start. The book that we had to give to the Professor's granddaughter! I rummaged through my backpack, looking for it, and pulled out the old, partially falling apart book. I took my first good look at it, curious to see why it was so important.

It was called 'Pokémon Mythology of the Ancients'.

_What kind of a granddaughter would want to read this?_ I thought disapprovingly.

Puzzled, I put the book away again. It was none of my business, after all. We'd have to head to Veilstone City next then to deliver that book safely.

Just then, the arena door flew open and Evelyn marched out, looking absolutely ecstatic.

"I won! I did it! I got my first Gym badge! Oh my Arceus, I can't believe it!" Evelyn was practically bouncing off the walls with excitement.

I was a little jealous, I'll admit. But, since Evelyn had emerged victorious, I could probably do the same. I guess we'd find out soon enough - it was my turn now.

"I'm next!" I squeaked, losing confidence by the minute.

Lara patted me on the back.

"You'll be fine, Zeph. Evelyn and I will be watching the whole thing from the stands. Gardenia's tough, but she's not impossible. You can do it!"

My legs felt like jelly as I walked into the arena. I noticed with surprise that it didn't look at all like I had expected inside. It had a grass floor with a massive skylight ceiling and multiple bushes and trees. It even had a small pond in one corner.

"You like?" Gardenia asked. "I get professional gardeners to maintain the arena. That's how it stays so immaculate, beautiful, and paradise-like."

"It's very pretty," I told her.

Then, feeling more confident that I felt, I said, "I came here for a battle though, so let's do it."

"If you insist. Let's start! Announcer?" Gardenia declared.

The announcer's voiced crackled to life through the Gym speakers.

"This will be a two-on-two battle. Substitutions are permitted. Begin!"

"Go, Turtwig!" Gardenia cried, thrusting a Poké Ball.

A little green turtle Pokémon burst out and landed softly on the grass. I took out my Pokédex for some well-needed information on this unfamiliar Pokémon.

_**Turtwig, the Tiny Leaf Pokémon. Its shell is made of earth and when it absorbs water, it becomes harder.**_

"Go, Lunar!" I called, throwing out my Drifloon's Poké Ball.

Lunar landed in a fighting stance, feeling much more confident now that my partner had joined me on the battlefield. I saw Gardenia pale at seeing my Drifloon.

"Turtwig, use Razor Leaf!" Gardenia ordered shakily.

I grinned. Bad move on Gardenia's part. I knew exactly which attack to use to counteract it. The leaves flew out of Turtwig's shell and, right as they were coming at my Pokémon, I gave him an order.

"Lunar, Gust! Blow all these leaves right back where they came from!" I yelled triumphantly.

Gardenia sure hadn't been expecting that one. Lunar's Gust caught the Razor Leaf attack in a mini tornado, then hurled it back at Turtwig. It was a Leaf Tornado attack! The Turtwig was thrown onto its back; it was dazed, but not out.

"Still hanging on? Lunar, finish it off with Constrict!" I called.

My Drifloon floated over to the weakened Turtwig and wrapped its tendrils around the Pokémon tightly.

"Now, Lunar! Astonish!" I shouted out gleefully.

Lunar puffed himself up and glared menacingly down at the little Turtwig that was now cowering in fear. The turtle Pokémon couldn't take any more excitement. It fainted.

_Yes! _I thought triumphantly, _One down, one to go!_

"Y-You're good," Gardenia admitted, still very unnerved by my Drifloon. I wondered why.

"Go, Roserade!" she called, throwing out her second Poké Ball.

A green Pokémon that resembled a dancer in a leaf cloak burst from the Ball, waving its red and blue flower pom-poms around excitedly. Pokédex time.

_**Roserade, the Bouquet Pokémon. Roserade is the evolved form of Roselia. It lures enemies with its sweet aroma, and attacks with dancer-like elegance.**_

I gulped. I'd never had to deal with an evolved form. I hoped Lunar would be strong enough to defeat it.

Gardenia waited for me to make the first move, obviously wanting to prevent a strategy like the one that had ultimately defeated her Turtwig. To force her to make a move, I had Lunar start off with Focus Energy. The purple balloon Pokémon's body began glowing as he charged power.

"Now! Roserade, use Weather Ball!" Gardenia demanded.

I knew that there was no way Lunar would be able to blow away the huge mass of air, water, snow and whatever else that was flying at him.

"Lunar, dodge it!" I cried out.

He tried to drift to the side, but, since there was no current assisting his movements, he was slow and the Weather Ball hit him hard in the side. He shot off the battlefield and landed in the pond.

I, on the other hand, stood there blinking and speechless like an idiot. Had Lunar been defeated?

Gardenia and I both watched the pond. Suddenly, Lunar drifted up out of the pond weakly, but with determination. I figured he was still in the battle, for now at least.

"Lunar, Gust!" I shrieked, certain that I had to win this.

The balloon Pokémon whipped up a little whirlwind, which he sent hurling at Roserade. I hoped it would knock the green Pokémon out, but it was only knocked over by the attack. The Roserade, angry now, looked to her Trainer for the knock-out.

"Roserade, Mega Drain," Gardenia said smugly.

Roserade outstretched its arms and two green beams of light shot out, wrapping themselves around Lunar. Then they began to suck his energy, which Lunar didn't have a lot of at the moment.

The assault was too much. Lunar fell over, exhausted, and fainted.

My heart plummeted as I realized that I had lost. How was that possible?

"Return, Lunar, good job," I muttered.

_It's not fair! _I fumed inside, _Gardenia got to fight two against one!_

Then I realized that I, in fact, had not lost. Yet. I still had Mona to fight with. I liked to have faith in my Pokémon, but I have to say, I didn't have much hope with this one. I lifted my Snorunt out of my backpack and set her on the battlefield. She took one look at the Roserade and cowered behind my leg. Sigh. No hope at all.

"Would you like to forfeit?" Gardenia asked, trying to be kind, but failing, for she was trying hard to stifle giggles.

"No!" I shouted. I was not _forfeiting_. If I was going to lose, I would do it properly.

"Suit yourself," Gardenia shrugged. "Roserade, Magical Leaf!"

The air became filled with glowing leaves that immediately made a beeline for Mona.

"Mona, do something!" I cried, panicked.

And do something she did. Much to my surprise and horror, she stepped right out in front of the leaves. Gardenia, however, gasped in shock.

"That's not normal!" she shrieked, right as the leaves were illuminated with a blue light, causing them to fall to the ground, curl up, and die.

What was going on? Mona turned around then and my heart stopped when I saw her eyes glowing with a faint blue light.

"You didn't even know it could use Disable?" Gardenia asked, a little crossly.

"I had no idea," I admitted.

Feeling more confident in my little Snorunt now, I faced Gardenia again.

"Snorunt, Disable the Roserade!" I ordered.

Mona just looked at me in confusion.

"What's wrong? You just used the move! Do what you did!" I shrieked.

She stared sadly at me, as if she didn't understand me. I couldn't believe it. We'd had a chance at winning and now Mona had blown it. I wanted to disappear into the ground as I heard laughing from across the arena and in the stands.

"Mona, just go get the Roserade," I sighed, feeling close to tears.

"Snorunt!" it cried.

I could not believe my eyes. If someone had told me what happened next instead of seeing it for myself, I wouldn't have believed them. Mona walked purposely up to the scornful Roserade and blew a wicked Icy Wind in its face that swept up and down its body, freezing the Pokémon from head to toe. Gardenia was speechless.

"Roserade is no longer able to battle. Mona wins!" the announcer called.

Mona came scurrying over to me and leapt up into my arms. I gave it a big hug.

I had won! No, _we_ had won. I could hardly wait to tell Devin of my unexpected victory.

_**A/N: I know some of you might be wondering where the conspiracy comes in. Soon, very soon, I promise. I have a plan. I've changed the objective of the villains slightly, so I'll change the summary on my page (not on the actual story, that one's still the same) after I've written it so I don't spoil anything. Keep reading and reviewing please, that's how I know I have readers, plus, I looove opinions and suggestions and comments and all that fun stuff.**_


	8. Bad Decisions & Consequences

"Congratulations. You fought well. You are worthy of the Forest Badge," Gardenia said, holding out her hand.

In her palm was a green badge that looked like a circle of three trees. I hesitated.

"Can I take it?" I asked, embarrassed.

"Of course. It's yours," Gardenia responded with a smile. "I also have to thank you. I've always had difficulty battling Ghost-type Pokémon before, but since I defeated your Drifloon, I think I've gotten over my fear a little."

I didn't know what to say to that. I just smiled in return and reached out gingerly to take the badge. I held it up to the skylight and sunlight danced across its surface. It was beautiful. And I couldn't believe that it was really mine.

"Where do I put it?" I asked awkwardly.

"You could put it anywhere you want, really. Some Trainers pin their badges to their clothes or backpacks and others keep them in a badge case," Gardenia told me.

"Well, thank you very much," I said gratefully.

Then, not exactly sure of what to do next, I left. Evelyn and Lara had gathered in the front room where Devin was already waiting. They were talking animatedly about my 'miraculous' victory. I was a little disappointed - I wanted to be the one to talk about my own fight.

Unfortunately, the story had been completely told by the time I reached my friends and they all congratulated me on my amazing luck. I bristled at that.

"Hey! It wasn't just luck that I won! My Pokémon and I have skill, too!"

They regarded me for a second.

"Yeah, you were pretty good," Evelyn said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "But it was your Snorunt that was really the star. She froze that Roserade solid in one move! Mona wouldn't listen to you, though, when you asked her to use Disable. Why not?"

I was hurt, not only because my friends were downright insulting me, but because they were right. Mona hadn't obeyed me. She'd done what she wanted the whole time and still managed to win. And I'd though she was worthless. I must not be a very good Trainer if I couldn't even realize the potential of my own Pokémon.

I was in such a bad mood now that I almost missed Devin's announcement about taking us on a 'celebratory field trip'.

"Ooh, where are we going?" Evelyn asked excitedly. "Snover and Skorupi surely deserve a vacation. They were so great today!"

Huh? Evelyn had a Skorupi? Since when? Then I remembered Lara telling me that she'd caught a new Pokémon and Evelyn had traded her Feebas. For a Skorupi, I'd gathered.

"I'm not telling you where we're going until we get there!" Devin said firmly.

"Let's go, then!" Lara chirped. "I can't wait to see where you're taking us!"

The three of them piled out the door, Evelyn calling out behind her, "Come on, Zephi!", as if I were her pet Growlithe or something.

I glanced down sadly at my brand-new Forest Badge. It didn't seem so special anymore.

* * *

><p>"We're here!" Devin announced about a half-hour later.<p>

We were standing in front of Eterna Forest.

"Eterna Forest is just crawling with good Pokémon. It's a great training and catching spot. I also brought a picnic, so we're all set for lunch, too." Devin continued.

Without any further discussion, into Eterna Forest we went. Evelyn, Lara, and Devin ran ahead, but I lagged behind, still a little pissed off from earlier.

"Whoa! Uh, Devin... What is that?" I heard Evelyn stutter.

I ran to catch up with my friends to see what the all the fuss was about. I stopped short when I saw what Evelyn had been talking about.

"Whoa," I echoed.

It was a huge house. A mansion, actually. I could tell in was uninhabited, because it was dilapidated, with several windows knocked out, part of the roof collapsed, and a very run-down physical appearance. A huge yard behind an old fence and gate stood between us and this house.

"That is the Old Chateau," Devin answered, shivering a little. "People say that it's full of ghosts and malevolent spirits. There's also the whole 'whoever goes in, never comes out' rumour. I wouldn't go near it if I were you."

"I won't! That old house give me the creeps. I wouldn't go near it if someone paid me a million dollars!" Evelyn cried, marching off deeper into the forest.

"Me, either. Besides, my Cherubi could use some training," Lara agreed, looking a little freaked out.

She and Devin followed Evelyn past the Old Chateau. They didn't even notice that I wasn't following them.

I stared at the Old Chateau. I wasn't in the least bit scared of ghosts. Plus, I had Pokémon to defend me. I was also curious to know what _was_ in there if no one had ever been inside to find out. Maybe a really rare Pokémon.

I made my decision. Creaking the gate open quietly, not wanted my friends to hear me, I slipped through and into the yard of the Old Chateau. I walked quickly and silently up the path towards the large, foreboding house, when suddenly, a Murkrow flew out of a dead tree, cawing and scaring the shit out of me. So much for not being afraid.

I continued on up the path after I'd regained my bearings and, before I knew it, I was standing at the large front door. I resisted the urge to knock (because it was a front door, after all) and put my hand to the doorknob.

Immediately, the door swung open in front of me, revealing a large foyer with a chandelier hanging from the ceiling. There were two large staircases on either side of the room that led up to an indoor balcony and, I observed, there were a_ lot _of doors.

I was hardly fazed by the door swinging open by itself. I figured it was the work of a Ghost Pokémon, which I was certain there were living here. I walked into the house slowly, testing the floor. I wasn't stupid - I knew that the floor of the house must be completely rotted out, so I'd have to tread carefully to avoid falling through.

Carefully, I made my way up to the balcony, being especially cautious on the stairs. There was a single door at the back of the room. Curious, I pushed through it...and was confronted with five more doors. I went to go through the centre door, but the floor creaked dangerously and I leaped back. Before my eyes, the floor fell through and I saw an old dining hall through the hole.

_Got to be more careful!_ I thought, biting my lip in concentration. I edged towards the door to the left of the centre door. The floor held and I breathed a sigh of relief. In this room, however, there was only a TV. That's it.

Or was that it? The TV was on. You know that slightly purplish black screen on your TV or iPod that shows up when it's in power-save mode, but not completely shut down?

I walked up to the TV and stared at it. I might sound like I'm losing my mind, but it felt like it was staring back at me. I blinked and suddenly, there was a Pokémon in front of me!

I yelped, jerking back and stumbling so that I fell to my knees. The Pokémon was small and orange, little lightning bolts of electricity sparking from all around its metallic body. It floated slowly at me with a forlorn look on its face. It looked at me, then back at the TV, then at me again. It shook its head back and forth.

"What is that supposed to mean?" I asked in confusion.

"Rotom..." it responded sadly.

I got up again and walked back towards the TV, but the Pokémon - Rotom? - stopped me. Its eyes were pleading. It hovered around to my backpack, which I had dropped when I stumbled, and pushed it over so that Mona and all my stuff fell out.

It surprised me by floating over to a Poké Ball and tapping the centre button. The empty Poké Ball opened up and let out a burst of red light that captured the Pokémon. I stared in disbelief at the Poké Ball. It didn't move.

Apparently, the Pokémon had just caught itself. I now had three Pokémon, just like that.

Suddenly, I froze as I heard voices behind me. Could it be Lara, Evelyn and Devin? I wanted to show them my new Pokémon so badly - then they wouldn't think I was an incompetent. I hurried out into the hallway and in the direction of the voices when I was suddenly grabbed from behind. Faster than I could scream, I was blindfolded, with a piece of duct tape or something similar over my mouth, forcing me to breathe through my nose. Someone was carrying me. I tried to struggle, but someone slapped me in the face to keep me still.

_Hey! _I thought, the sting of the slap bringing tears to my eyes.

I tried to scream through the tape, making any kind of noise I could to be rescued, but someone who'd obviously had enough of my futile struggles pinched the Vulcan nerve at the back of my neck and I was out cold in seconds.

* * *

><p>I awoke stiff and extremely cramped. I was somewhere very dark and I had to wait for my eyes to adjust before I could see anything at all.<p>

"Where am I?" I wondered aloud.

Then, everything that had happened to me came back in a rush. I'd been kidnapped! But, then what? Where was I now? Listening hard, I could make out a sort of rushing sound outside of wherever I was at. A river, maybe? No, more like a car or truck or something, because there were occasional bumps.

Just then, the room-thing that contained me was lit up by a sudden light source, like someone had opened a large door or something. My whereabouts suddenly became clear to me.

I was in a cage.

I scuttled to the front and peered out through the bars on the front. There were many cages just like mine in a huge room that appeared to be a warehouse. Warehouses didn't hit speed bumps every so often though, so it had to be something else.

What else could be this big that bumped around and... Oh no. My chest clenched as I pinpointed the terrible truth.

I was in a cage in the cargo hold of a very large jet.

_Now what? _I thought desperately. _Pokémon! Maybe they can-_

I stopped mid-sentence when I realized that my Poké Ball loops were empty. I felt my back in horror. Nothing there, either.

"All my stuff is _gone_!" I wailed.

I became aware of the screams and cries of other people as they, too, realized that they had been stripped of all their possessions, Pokémon and otherwise.

"Shuddup in there, will ya?" someone shouted, probably one of our captors.

"All clear in here. No one's escaped. Drop time in thirty. Let's go tell Boss."

Drop time? I didn't like the sound of that. I heard the footsteps of the men fading away and then my light source was cut off and I was plunged into darkness again.

_**A/N: Two updates in one day to make up for the one I missed yesterday because I spent my evening at the movies watching the Hunger Games. :) If anyone has any suggestions, I'd be happy to hear those as well, because, for some reason, I feel that my quality of work is going down. :S**_


	9. Escape From the Exploding Jet

A few minutes after the men had left I heard a muffled sound from the cage next to me. I strained my ears to listen.

"Hey. Hey, you. Girl in the cage next to me."

I jumped a little as I realized the voice was talking to _me_.

"Um, y-yes?" I asked, tentatively.

"Turn your cage so that it faces me, okay?"

I obliged, scooting around to face the direction of where I figured the very feminine voice originated. In front of me were the whites of two eyes peering out of the darkness that looked utterly terrified. This person was making horrified moaning noises.

"Did you say that?" I hissed at the eyes.

The eyes remained unresponsive, their whites still glistening with shock and terror. I figured the owner of the eyes must fear that they were living their last moments.

"Look up, idiot!" came the voice again.

In the cage on top of Eyes' cage, the girl, with piercing green eyes that I could see, even in the dark, was looking down at me.

"Finally. I'm going to get us all out of here, but I need your help, seeing as the stupid kid below me won't even talk to me. He's too scared."

I brightened at that.

"R-Really? You're going to free us?"

"I said I was, didn't I?" she sounded impatient. "Anyway, we have to hurry. We don't have much time. You heard the man - thirty minutes. That's it. Now, listen up."

I sat quietly, waiting for further instruction.

"I keep my special Altaria's Poké Ball in between my boobs at all times - safety measures - so the poachers haven't stolen it from me. It can only fit through the bars while it's minimized and I can't release her from all the way up here, so I'm going to roll the Poké Ball over to you and you're going to reach out and poke the centre button to release her. I'll give her instructions from there. Do you think you can do that?"

I nodded vigorously. Anything to get me out of this tiny, cramped cage!

"Ready?" she asked.

I could see the green glint of her eyes in the darkness.

"Yup," I confirmed.

She slowly dropped the Poké Ball through the bars of the cage and it hit the ground and began to roll to me. I reached out my first two fingers and my thumb to form a triangular shape to stop the Poké Ball before it rolled right into my cage.

The small capsule device hit my fingers with the button facing away from me. Grrr.

Working with the three fingers, I managed to turn the Poké Ball's release button towards me. Holding the ball between my first two fingers, I pushed the centre button with my thumb. The Poké Ball expanded to its full size. I pressed it again and it opened up, revealing a Pokémon that, to my annoyance, I couldn't see due to the darkness.

"Altaria?" it hummed, wondering where its Trainer had gone.

"Clover? Over here, beauty!" called the girl from her cage.

The Altaria whirled around and cried out when it saw its beloved Trainer stuck in a cage.

"Clover, we need you to get us out of these cages. I'm going to move to the back, then you use Dragon Claw on the bars, okay, girl?"

Clover waited for her Trainer to scramble to the very back of the cage, then she raised a glowing foot and tore it across the bars, shattering them into little tiny pieces.

"You did it, Clover! Good girl!" the other girl shrieked happily.

She flew out of her cage and landed on her Altaria's back.

"Now we need to do the same thing to all the other cages," the girl instructed her Pokémon.

Clover stared at her Trainer dubiously and the girl gave the Altaria a hard glare.

"Baby girl, you will listen to your Trainer. I asked you to open all the cages. Hop to it!"

The Altaria didn't need to be asked again. It flew around with surprising speed, clawing every cage in the cargo hold open. I scrambled out of the slashed entrance the moment Clover had opened my prison, eternally grateful to be free.

Well, almost.

"Okay, everyone gather round!" the Altaria's Trainer whispered loudly.

Since she had just likely saved their lives, no one objected and everyone crowded around her like many Remoraids around a Mantine.

"We need to ambush the cockpit. Like, now. I'm betting the men heard the commotion and are now rushing down here to see what's up. We have to take action, and besides, the Pokémon are probably being held hostage up there as well."

The comment about our stolen Pokémon did it. Moving in a large, angry cloud, we began to march towards where we suspected the hatch to the cockpit was located.

Unfortunately, we never got there, for we were rudely interrupted.

"Hey! What's goin' on down there?" came an angry yell.

"Everyone, they're coming! When light from the hatch appears, charge! The whole bunch of us will surely overpower two or three of them. Ready?" our temporary leader barked.

It only took a couple of seconds for the men to open the hatch, and when we saw the light, we ran at it in a powerful mass. The men yelped upon seeing us all loose and racing right at them, then tried desperately to reseal the hatch to put a barrier between us and them. Thankfully, like in every large group, there was that one guy that must lift weights or something, because he was able to thrust himself under the hatch and push both men off, sending the hatch cover flying.

We surged up from the hatch and burst into the cockpit, obviously scaring the pilots out of their wits, for the plane took a brief nosedive, unbalancing us all. The pilots paled and struggled to regain control of their jet. It was apparent that dealing with a mass of rampaging kids had not been on their contracts.

"Hand over the Pokémon right now!" the girl who, in the light, looked to be about sixteen and quite attractive, ordered.

The pilots shivered in place and nodded shakily. He was about to get up to take us to our Pokémon, but he was stopped by one of the men who'd been monitoring us in the cargo hold.

"Oh, no, you don't. You ain't lettin' these kids go anywhere. Back in the cargo hold, kids!" one man demanded.

As if we were going to do that. This didn't seem to be an especially bright criminal.

"Um, never!" our pretty leader cried.

Then she ripped open a cardboard box next to her and kicked it over. A huge rush of red and white came spilling out. Our Poké Balls!

But, seriously. Our bandits were total amateurs.

"Pick up a Poké Ball and start fighting!" shouted a voice from the ruckus that had spontaneously erupted in the cockpit.

I picked up a Poké Ball at random from the many that were rolling around chaotically in the cockpit.

"Go, um, Poké Ball!" I cried.

The Ball opened and out popped a large brown falcon Pokémon. It was a Fearow.

_Hmm. Solid,_ I thought. _But what moves can it use? I suppose I'll have to guess._

I wondered where my backpack and Pokédex were. I'd have to find them at some point as well before I got out of here.

_And Mona, too!_ I thought with a start.

However, before I could give the Fearow a command, silence fell as someone called out the dreaded move.

"Electrode, Explosion!"

Usually a Pokémon would resist a command if it knew it wasn't logical for the situation, but this Electrode must have been suicidal or something, because it charged up for the attack anyway.

There was a unanimous howl of despair as the Electrode exploded with a loud bang, the impact causing an explosive decompression as the fuselage and floor of the jet around the Pokémon was blown to bits.

"Fearow, Fly! Get out of here!" I shrieked, holding onto the falcon Pokémon for dear life.

The Fearow responded and it launched itself up and out, but not before the damage of the Explosion hit the fuel compartment and the jet exploded like a bomb. Fearow and I were blown sky-high, the poor Pokémon fighting to control its rapid ascent.

Unfortunately, if it weren't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all. A large flying piece of debris hit Fearow's wing, ripping it off the bird Pokémon entirely. Screeching out in searing pain, the Fearow just dropped right out from underneath me, obviously smart enough to know that its life was over.

And so I fell, plummeting at practically warp speed towards Earth, knowing, like the Fearow, that my life was over as well.

With that in mind, I promptly passed out and accepted the inevitable.

_**A/N: Damn those cliff-hangers, eh? :) I won't make you wait long for this one, though, not as long as the other one, that's for sure. I couldn't update due to dial-up connection for a few days. :( Can't stand it. Anyway, hope you readers don't mind a bit of graphic detail and gore, because that's what's coming up next.**_


	10. That Damn Black Cloud

Time seemed to slow down as I fell down, down, down towards a huge mass of blue. The sea. The beautiful, vast, turquoise sea. I imagined myself plummeting down beneath the waves and staying there forever, making friends with the Finneons and Mantykes. When I thought about it, my imaginary life as a mermaid or something didn't seem so bad after all.

Then I got my senses back, and I moment later, I hit the water. I screamed in agony as my ribcage slapped the surface and shattered, sending tiny fragments of bone through my carefully concealed heart. Whiplash caused my neck to fly back once my forehead hit the water and, suddenly, my world went black.

* * *

><p>I was lighter than air, though I felt heavier than a thousand-pound rock at the moment. I was staring down at the grotesquely scattered...pieces...of myself resting at the bottom of the sea. Blood tainted the water around me red. If I could cry, I would be bawling my face off. I was dead and looking down at my mangled and otherwise unrecognizable self. But, yet, I could still comprehend what was going on. How was this possible?<p>

Suddenly, dark tendrils snaked up from beneath the ocean floor and grabbed the deformed torso of my former body. I watched in horror as more of the tendrils joined the first and snagged onto each little piece of my shattered form. Then, they began to slowly piece me back together.

Using dark magic, or whatever it was, my body began to heal itself; to reform. But I guess rebirth came with a price, because I looked a little different. Okay, make that a lot different.

My features had gone dark. My formerly gray-blue eyes had transformed to an abyssal blue that looked endless, like a black hole of sorts. My sandy coloured hair had become black as night. In contrast, my skin (which had, in fact, remained exactly the same) looked sickly pale.

Yuck. I looked like _death._ Personified. Or, for lack of a better term, me gone bad. But, was that really me? I know for sure it had been, but I wasn't sure if it was now. My question was partially answered as...I?...seemed to come to life before my eyes. The old me's eyes flickered to me, snakelike, and, before I could even protest, with unimaginable speed, I began to eat myself.

Agony all over again. I didn't understand what the _hell_ was going on here, but from what I'd taken out of all this, the creature-ified version of me was currently in the process of destroying its old soul. Destroying _me_.

"Stop! Stop it!" I screamed in terror.

To my surprise and delight, it stopped and stared at me.

"What is it?" it asked in a maliciously sweet and skin-crawlingly smooth voice.

"Can't we make a deal or something? Can't I go back to being me? Please? Isn't there anything you can do?" I asked the creature.

It began to laugh, an awful laugh, that struck an intense fear in my heart. Its eyes flashed red briefly then took my chin with a horrifyingly long, red nail.

"Oh, Zephi, you don't know what you're asking for," she crooned. "But, fine. I shall grant your wish. But, rebirth comes with a price."

Hmm. My earlier words exactly.

"What is this 'price'?" I asked warily.

"You must bear the mark of death. After all, you were dead once," it told me.

"What does that mean?" I questioned. It didn't sound like an especially difficult condition to me.

The creature ignored my question entirely and instead fixed its soul-swallowing gaze on me. "Now, Zephi, because you wish it, you will be reborn!"

Suddenly, every noise was amplified, even though I was underwater. Especially the beating of my own heart. I longed for life. I craved it. My heart became visible through the creature's chest and I stared hungrily at it.

"Come, Zephi. Come get your life back!" the creature summoned me.

It was too much. I dove straight towards my heart and right into the creature.

"Forget..."

* * *

><p>I woke up, feeling refreshed and invigorated. Strange, because whenever I tried to think about what had happened yesterday, all I could envision was a dark smog. Looking around, I did a double take as I realized I was in some sort of a hut with a whole bunch of beds in it. I was surrounded by them. White beds with the covers pulled up. I turned to the bed on my left and reached for the cover.<p>

_Who would do this? _I thought angrily. _The people will suffocate!_

I pulled back the cover and leaped back immediately, feeling dangerously nauseous. It was a mangled person! What on earth were they doing in here?

Looking around again, I realized that it, in fact, was the opposite. What was _I_ doing in here? This was a morgue! Suddenly, my memories returned and my mouth slowly sank open as the truth sank in.

The jet explosion. It had killed all of these people, almost the entire group of people on the jet. A hollow feeling opened up inside me and I was overwhelmed with tears. Everyone was dead! I was all alone.

_How the hell did I survive that? _I thought, putting a hand to my head, which had spontaneously started to ache.

When I thought too hard about the plane crash, that odd black smoke clouded my thoughts yet again. I wondered anxiously if there had been any survivors. Namely, the pretty teenager with the Altaria, who had been our fearless leader.

_I wonder what happened to that Fearow? _ I thought sadly, figuring that it had probably fallen to its death, like everyone else in this room had.

I don't know how I hadn't realized this before, but when I thought about being surrounded by thousands of pounds of rotting flesh, I knew I was gonna blow.

I leaped out of my bed and ran out of the hut, promptly throwing up right into the water outside the building. Thank goodness I hadn't been running faster, or else I would've run right into the water. The gently lapping sea surrounded me every way I turned. How strange.

I was on a floating wood platform with a hut on it. In the near distance, there was more floating wood with more floating huts. What kind of a place was this? Houses on the sea?

All of a sudden, an uproar came from the floating houses in the near distance. A rowboat was placed on the calm sea and two people jumped in, immediately beginning to paddle towards my little "island". They reached me in a matter of seconds and began patting me down. These people, a man and a woman, I noticed, looked like nothing I'd ever seen before. Their skin was deeply tanned and their hair was a rich mane of chocolaty brown - both of them. They were both dressed in clothes made of intricately woven palm leaves.

Once they had been assured that I was alive and not a ghost, they stopped patting me and started talking rapidly to one another in a different language. Then, the woman stepped forward and looked at me kindly.

"You come back to Pacifidlog with us?" she asked.

I nodded thankfully, smiling warmly at both of them. "Thank you."

The three of us paddled back to their town, whatever it was called, and were taken immediately to the Pokémon Centre, which was really just another very large hut. It was there that I received a rather pleasant surprise.

"You're alive!" I cried, seeing the Trainer with the Altaria sitting contemplatively in the hut.

She looked up and smiled slightly. "Oh, so there is another survivor."

"What?" I yelped. "We're the _only ones_ that survived the explosion?"

The girl sighed. "To be honest, I don't know how you did. I saw you fall from that Fearow after its wing was blown off and I thought you were a goner. You look pretty damn good for having fallen a few thousand feet."

I knew she was trying to make a joke, but I could tell she was also suspicious. A person just didn't survive falling from that high up, even after landing in water. I didn't know how I did it either, and I didn't want to be suspected by this girl, so I made something up.

"Um, I think I fell onto a passing bird Pokémon or something. I was _really_ lucky," I lied.

She nodded absently. "Clover clawed open a window and we flew out before the explosion. I saw it coming and didn't wanna die."

"Do you know where all the Pokémon went?" I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer.

"Their Poké Balls are scattered throughout about a hundred mile radius. The chances are slim to none that we'll find them all. We just have to hope that we'll find ours. There are already Pacifidians out in boats recovering any Poké Balls they see; thank Arceus they float," the girl explained.

She stood up, then, and the rays of sunlight set her dark red hair on fire (metaphorically, of course) and accented her sharp green eyes.

"How rude of me. I haven't even introduced myself to you. My name's Scarlett."

She reached out a hand for me to shake.

"I'm Zephi," I replied, shaking her hand. "Wait, aren't you...? I recognize the name from TV. Oh, that's it! You're the famous Dragoness, right? That took down most of the former criminal enterprises?"

"Team Rocket, Team Galactic, Team Plasma," she listed off the names on her fingers. "Oh, and Teams Magma and Aqua, too. I guess you can say I'm kind of a whiz at foiling the bad guys."

"It's kind of ironic, then, that this team of villains or whatever they are, captured you, eh?" I teased, attempting at a joking manner.

"Oh, you misunderstand. I was a stowaway. They never captured me, I snuck on. The only reason I got stuck in that cage was because I got in one to fool the villains and it automatically locked behind me. Damn this modern technology," Scarlett told me.

Wow. This Dragoness Scarlett must have one rich life story. And to think that she was only sixteen, or that's what I thought, at least. I wasn't going to ask and find out, though, for fear that she'd be offended.

"C'mon, Zephi, we should probably wait outside for the Poké Balls they're bringing in. Then we can sort them and see how many we got," Scarlett announced, heading for the door.

"By the way..." she turned around to face me with a confused look on her face. "Didn't you used to have blonde-ish hair? Eh, maybe I didn't get a good enough look at you in the light."

What? All of a sudden, I got an urge to look at myself. I walked up to a clear glass window on the wall of the Pokémon Centre and stared at my reflection.

I gasped when I saw my reflection.

Midnight blue eyes and lush, jet black hair. Pale skin. I was..._pretty_.

I heard chuckling from behind me.

"Did you not know you looked like that?" Scarlett asked, amused.

"Well, I, um, yeah, of course!" I stuttered.

Truth was, I _didn't_ remember myself looking like that. Not one bit. Problem was, I didn't know what I remembered I looked like. All I knew was that it wasn't like this.

I gripped my head and moaned as the black smoke took over my memories yet again and left me with a crushing headache.

_**A/N: Now I hope you finally know what the 'Power Within' part of the title means. :) You get a cookie if you do. Now, reviews. Please. Leave. Some. All I can see in my email are various "so-and-so has added you to this-and-that subscription list", so I know I have readers. Don't make me hunt you down. ;)**_


	11. Bad Decisions & Better Consequences

It turned out that a bunch of the Pacifidians, as Scarlett had called them, had returned back to the floating village with boats full of Poké Balls. It was sorting time.

Scarlett and I each took a rowboat-full and, one at a time, released every Pokémon there. I have to say, there were some pretty miraculous Pokémon in those Poké Balls and it made me wonder; what did Scarlett plan for us to do with_ all_ these Pokémon? I was about to ask her, but the next Poké Ball I threw made me completely forget what I was going to say.

It was a gorgeous orange Dragon-Type Pokémon that was spoken of only in myths. A Dragonite!

"Oh, Zephi! You found my Dragonite! Thank you so much!" Scarlett squealed, throwing herself into the Dragonite's arms. The Dragon-Type hugged her back fondly.

"This...This Dragonite is yours?" I cried in disbelief.

I suppose it only made sense. Scarlett was a famous Dragoness. Her Dragon-Types were said to be extremely powerful.

"How did you get a Dragonite, anyway?" I asked suspiciously. Dratini were supposed to be next to impossible to find in the wild.

"When you've got the right lineage, you get special privileges," Scarlett said cryptically.

I was about to pursue the matter, but then I thought better of it. It wasn't really my business anyway, and perhaps she didn't feel like sharing.

"I'm sure we'll find some of your Pokémon, too, Zephi," Scarlett assured me, mistaking my thoughtful expression for sadness.

All of a sudden, I had a real "oh-no" moment.

"_Mona!_" I screamed.

She hadn't been in a Poké Ball! I had a terrible, eating feeling that she had been killed. I mean, there was no way that a tiny little Snorunt would survive a fall like that, right? I fell to my knees and grieved for my loss.

"Who's Mona?" Scarlett asked.

"My Snorunt!" I wailed. "She was just a baby! She couldn't have lived through that, who am I kidding? She's gone!"

"A Snorunt, you say? I hate to get your hopes up, but I saw one of those getting carried out the window behind me by a Rotom, I think," Scarlett told me.

I know Scarlett had warned me about getting my hopes up, but that just seemed too coincidental to not be Mona and the Rotom I'd just sort of captured.

"They're alive!" I screeched in awe.

"Don't get your expectations too high - it might not even have been them! Now, keep sorting. Don't you want to find your other Pokémon, too?" Scarlett scolded me.

Meekly, I returned to my work. She was right. I wanted to find Lunar just as badly as the other two.

Day stretched into evening and evening into night. Sometime between 5:00 and 6:00pm, I guessed, we found Lunar, who seemed a bit surprised to see me. But there was no sign of Mona and the Rotom. Late that night, at around 10:00pm, we released the last Pokémon from the last Poké Ball, and it just so happened to be Scarlett's only missing Dragon-Type, her Hydreigon.

"Yay! Success!" Scarlett cried out to the heavens. "Thank Arceus all my beauties have returned. How about you, Zephi?"

"I got Lunar," I muttered.

"That's it? That's all we found? Just one of your Pokémon? Oh, I'm _so_ sorry!" Scarlett snatched me up into a consoling hug. "I didn't realize. We'll go look for them in the morning, 'kay?"

I just nodded. I wasn't sure if I liked or disliked the manner in which Scarlett was talking to me. It reminded me of the way my mother used to talk to me whenever I lost a stuffed animal when I was, like, six. I know Scarlett was only trying to be nice, but she didn't need to talk down to me.

It was too late to do anything else that night, though, so we decided to hit the sack. The Pacifidlog Pokémon Centre didn't have many rooms for passing Trainers, because it was so rare for them to have visitors due to the wicked fast current that separated them from Slateport, which was a short jaunt west. Scarlett had I had the place to ourselves, so we each claimed rooms with a great view of the sea, right next to each other.

It took me no time at all to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

* * *

><p>When I woke up, it was the middle of the night, but strangely, I felt wide awake. I glanced out the window and saw the bright full moon reflecting off the calm sea.<p>

"What if Mona and Rotom are scared out there?" I heard myself whisper aloud. "It's all my fault that we were captured in the first place. I have to do something to rescue them."

Moving like a robot, I got up out of bed and started to walk to the door. But then I stopped.

_Zephi, your first stupid choice was to go into the Old Chateau. And guess what? You got caught! Making bonehead decisions has a bad habit of never working out for you, so go back to bed and wait until morning like Scarlett told you to! _I scolded myself internally.

_Oh yeah? It might be an even worse decision to leave them! They could be alive now and dead in the morning for all I know!_ I challenged my conscience.

I decided to go for it. I left my room, then came right back in as I realized that leaving the Pokémon Centre out the door was out of the question, for there was always a Nurse Joy, or Pacifidian in this case, working the night shift at the front desk just in case. Instead, I went straight to the window and lifted it up, enjoying the tropical summer air that drifted in and caressed my skin, seemingly the typical climate of this new region. Whatever this new region was.

I slipped stealthily out the window and landed on one of the floating dock things that the whole village was built on. Being very careful where I was putting my feet, I inched my way along the platforms to the "marina" where all the rowboats were. The current picked up on the west side of Pacifidlog, and unless I never wanted to see my Pokémon ever again, I wouldn't be going over there. Too much could go wrong, and besides, the jet had exploded over the sea east of the town. I plopped myself down into a rowboat, picked up the paddles, and started east, towards the sea of floating jet debris.

Using the full moon to guide me, I began to look for my lost Pokémon. Quickly, I realized that they could be anywhere, anywhere at all, and that my chances were terrible of ever finding them. I wondered with a pang if they were already dead. I stopped and looked up at the stars in the sky.

"Mona. Rotom. If you're up there, I-" I cut off as my voice broke and I was forced to collect myself and start again. "I-If you're up there, I want you to know that I'm... I'm really sorry for everything that happened to you. I wish you had found a b-better Trainer, both of you, that knew how to take care of you and didn't... didn't make stupid mistakes like I did. I h-hope you're in a better place now, where n-nothing can... can hurt you anymore. And..." I trailed off as tears began to slide down my face and I started to sob, not for my loss, but for theirs.

"I'm so sorry I let you down!" I cried, my voice ravaged with tears.

I put my head down and cried quietly, the sounds of night bugs echoing in my ears. I don't know how long I cried, but I know that I was startled out of it when my slowly drifting boat ran into something and stopped with a little thump.

I looked up as best I could with my hair all matted around my face and my eyes bleary with tears and saw that I'd hit an island. I almost fell out of my boat when I saw what was on the island.

It was a pillar; its height so great that it surpassed the clouds. Intrigued, I pulled the boat safely ashore so that it wouldn't drift off and walked up to the door of the tower. Fully expecting it to be locked, I almost fell straight in when the door opened in my hand. Something about this tower told me it wasn't dangerous, but sacred. Nothing inside would hurt me.

At least, that's what I'd thought before a random lightning bolt shot out of the darkness and hit me in the stomach. I jumped about four feet in the air with the shock and went limp, falling uselessly to the ground. Just then, something in the pillar lit up.

"Rotom?"

I raised my head, not believing what I was hearing. The Rotom was illuminated in the dark. It was alive!

"Rotom! You lived!" I squealed.

The Rotom, seeing that it was just me, floated down closer to ground level. Below him, was Mona, paralyzed through and through, but still, her.

"My Pokémon are alive...!" I mused, not quite believing it myself. "But I thought you were dead! How did you get in here?"

The Rotom ignored me and floated into the centre of the room. The light the Pokémon emitted illuminated a stone monument in the centre. Rotom just stood there, staring sadly at it.

"What is it, Rotom? I asked it. "Do you want me to look at the monument?"

It nodded emotionlessly. I obliged, walking up to it and staring at the words Rotom had illuminated.

"In. Loving. Memory. Of. All... Wait a minute, Rotom, this is a gravestone!" I said in surprise.

Rotom glared at me and zapped my arm a little to get me to keep reading.

"All. Those. Who. Fell. Victim. To. The. Sea. Then there are a bunch of names," I dictated.

Rotom floated a little lower and focused his luminescence on one particular name.

"Monty Saunders," I read, then looked down at the little Rotom in horror, everything suddenly becoming clear.

"Your Trainer was also taken from the Old Chateau before me, but he left you behind. Then you joined me, knowing I would get captured and figuring that would take you to your Trainer. Right?" I felt tears brimming in my eyes again.

"Rotom..." the Pokémon confirmed sadly.

I knew what I had to do.

"Rotom, you're free to go. I don't even have your Poké Ball anymore, so it isn't like I could force you to come with me, anyway. If you don't want to be a captured Pokémon after your beloved Trainer died, then that's fine with me. Go, if you want, Rotom. It's not fair to keep you against your will," I told it passionately.

It looked questioningly at me, then at the door that I'd left open to the sea. Then it dissolved in mid-air as only a Ghost-Type Pokémon could.

"Good bye, Rotom," I murmured.

Then, I turned my glance to the paralyzed Mona. I still had to take care of her. I reached to pick her up and she winced away, looking scared.

"Oh, Mona, it's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. It's Zephi, it's me. Remember?" I consoled her.

She looked warily at me, but relaxed a little and allowed me to pick her up and cradle her.

_What's her deal? _I wondered as I carried Mona back to the rowboat. _It hasn't even been that long since I'd seen her. Maybe she doesn't trust me anymore because of what happened._

That last thought caused me to frown. I absolutely, positively could _not_ make any more mistakes that would cause my Pokémon to doubt me. Now that I thought about it, even Lunar had seemed a little unsure of interacting with me. Ugh, I was going to have to step up my game if I wanted my Pokémon to ever trust me as much as Scarlett's obviously did.

_**A/N: Bit of a filler chapter here. Zephi still hasn't figured out that she's missing a few important things still from the jet explosion... Namely her Pokédex and her Eterna Gym Badge. And that book from Professor Carolina. Not going to say too much here - there's not a lot to say about a filler!**_


	12. Trouble Strikes Again

I was walking in Eterna City. I wandered around, feeling like I was looking for something, though at the same time, not being sure exactly what that something was. Just then, I came upon a park bench and stopped dead in my tracks.

It was Evelyn.

But it didn't look like Evelyn, or at least the Evelyn I knew. This Evelyn wore extremely low-cut tops so that half her boobs stuck out. This Evelyn wore the shortest booty shorts that I'd ever seen. This Evelyn was...pregnant.

Oh my Arceus. I looked on in horror. How many years had it been since I'd last seen my best friend? I didn't think it had been many - how could she have changed so much in such a short time? And gotten _pregnant_ for Arceus' sake! Just then, I noticed Lara wasn't with her and that was it. I was talking to this Evelyn Summers.

"Hey, Ev, I haven't seen you in so long! How have you been?" I called out as I walked closer, waving to her.

Evelyn lifted her sunglasses and I grimaced as I noticed that her eyes were caked in _way_ too much make-up.

"Um, excuse me? Who are you?"

I did a double-take. Firstly, her voice was all wrong, not like Evelyn's at all. Secondly, she didn't even remember me, Zephi, her best friend!

"It's me, Zephi!" I felt foolish for even having to tell her. "Your best friend?"

"Oh. My. God," she smiled a wide, practiced smile that I felt wasn't genuine at all. "Zephi! Damn girl! I _love_ what you've done with your hair! And your skin! Sooo much better than before."

"Evelyn, what happened to you?" I cried, pushed over the edge by how strange she was acting. "You never say 'God'. You say 'Arceus'! Also, I did nothing with my hair! Or my skin! Or anything! I haven't changed in the least - it's you that's completely renovated and kicked the old Evelyn out."

"What the hell are you talking about? The old Evelyn left the second you disappeared off the face of the Earth. I mean, that old Evelyn liked _Pok__émon_ for God's sake!" Evelyn laughed.

"W-What? You mean to tell me you don't train Pokémon anymore?" I cried in disbelief.

"What, do you?" Evelyn teased, only just realizing that I was serious. Her ruby red lips formed a little 'o' of surprise.

"Zeph, I can_not _believe you're still into Pokémon! Don't you know that's for little kids?" she chided, as if she knew so much more than me.

I ignored her stab at my self-esteem. "Where's Lara, anyway?" I asked through gritted teeth.

"Lara, oh... You didn't hear?" Evelyn said with feigned sadness. "She died a long time ago. She was mauled by some mountain Pokémon."

"No!" I shrieked, feeling my world slip away from me like sand in a hourglass. "She can't be... You can't..."

Evelyn smirked. "Zephi, dear, get with the times. So much has changed since you've left. If only you'd listened to Devin and never gone into the Old Chateau, none of this ever would've happened."

I couldn't say anything to her. Evelyn was right. It was all my fault. All my fault...

A roaring started in my ears that I couldn't explain and I threw myself at Evelyn's feet.

"Please tell me there's something I can do to get you and Lara back! Please! I'm begging you!" I sobbed.

"There's nothing you can do. What's done is done. Everything has changed. Accept it or don't," Evelyn said simply.

"Nooooo!" I screamed as I was suddenly ripped from Eterna.

The roaring got louder and more intense and my eyes snapped open. I was in my boat, with the paralyzed Mona. The early dawn light was just beginning to seep over the horizon and, with the little light available from the rising sun, I saw trouble.

_Oh, shit..._ I cursed internally as I spotted the Pacifidlog to Slateport currents straight ahead.

_How far did I drift while I was sleeping like an oblivious idiot? _I asked myself desperately. Not surprisingly, I didn't have an answer.

The rapids grew closer. Not only would I be separated indefinitely from Pacifidlog (the rapids were definitely a one-way street), but from Scarlett as well. And, being the only friend I had at the moment, I needed her. I began frantically trying to paddle away from the rapids, but I just got myself spinning in a circle.

It was no use. The only thing I could do to save my own ass and Mona's was try to keep the rowboat upright as we went over the rapids.

The second we hit the first rapid, though, I realized that I'd saddled myself with the impossible task. It was like a roller-coaster, except that I had to struggle to keep myself and Mona seated.

_Whatever happens, though,_ I vowed, _I will hang on to Mona at all times and _never _let her go._

We flew over the rapids, getting tossed and thrashed in the spray. I could only hope to Arceus that these boats were strong enough to hold us.

Then, when I hoped that we were almost done with the worst of the rapids, our luck ran out. A hole was gouged in the bottom of the boat by a sharp rock below us. Water immediately began gushing in and I knew the boat was going to sink.

_We can't sink with it! _I screamed internally. _We'll die!_

I steeled my courage for what I knew I would have to do. I'd have to keep a death grip on Mona and jump.

I reminded myself that the water wouldn't be very cold, because this region had a more tropical climate than Sinnoh, year-round.

"Are you ready, Mona?" I asked nervously, gasping as the front of the boat submerged.

I waited for the next big rapid to go past so we'd have less of a chance of landing on rocks, but the whole boat sunk as we went over! I had no choice but to jump right then and there, trying desperately to clear the rocks.

I screamed as I flew from the sunken boat, Mona held tightly in one arm. I'd need my other one to swim. As it turned out, though we landed in a deep spot, I couldn't swim with only one arm against rapids. So, instead, I let them push me, using my arm to guide me and keep me above water. That proved to be a very hard thing to do, the rapids were like an undertow, they kept forcing me underwater. I took big gasps of air while I was above water, because I quickly learned that I was under more often than I was above.

Keeping Mona above water was a Ponyta of a different colour. She was in my arm, so I found it difficult, understandably, to keep just the arm with her in it above water. The poor Pokémon couldn't even flounder - she was still completely paralyzed!

Just then, a rare stroke of luck occurred. I heard voices in the distance! Undoubtedly beach noise. I must be getting close to Slateport, the city Scarlett had told me was on this side of the rapids. The next time I came above water, moments later, I saw the city in the distance. It gave me hope.

Feeling like a triathlete, I found a little more strengths in my reserve to get Mona and I out of the rapids. We were pushed out of the rushing water into still water, but I had zero energy left by then. My hand grazed my belt. Lunar's Poké Ball! I'd hooked it to my belt after Scarlett and I had discovered it and I hadn't changed since then, so there it was.

I threw it into the water and Lunar appeared. He looked stunned when he saw that we were floating the water beside him. I figured if the Pokémon could pull us to shore, we'd be okay. Everything was lighter in water, so it wouldn't even be especially taxing on his part.

"Lunar, drag us to Slateport, please," I told him, so tired that I could barely get the words out.

I re-hooked his empty Poké Ball to my belt and grabbed onto one of Lunar's tendrils with my free hand. He rose up out of the water and began to float along slowly, enjoying the breeze that was working in our favour and pushing us closer to the port city.

It wasn't long after that I blacked out.

* * *

><p>"Hey, are you okay? Talk to me! Aw, man, please don't be dead. You can't be dead. Come on, wake up!"<p>

An insistent voice prodded me out of my 'state' and my eyes flickered open.

"Oh!" was all I could say in response to seeing a pair of worried hazel eyes inches in front of my face.

"Wah! S-Sorry! I, uh, yikes... Your eyes..." he tried to explain.

"Yeah, I know," I told him, even though I really didn't.

"Um, so you're okay?" he asked hopefully.

I nodded and took the chance to get a closer look at him. His light brown hair was long-ish, not like insanely long, but just long enough to be scruffy. Although, his wasn't scruffy. His eyebrows were dark in comparison to his hair, and thick-ish. He wore a pair of dusty brown cargo shorts and some name-brand t-shirt. He was all-in-all not a bad-looking guy, though I could guess a little nerdy maybe.

I sat up. "I'm Zephi."

I offered my hand to him, which he took a little hesitantly. Was he... scared of me?

"Jeff," he said.

I smiled, not sure of what else to do. Then, I realized that I was missing something.

"Where'd Mona go now?" I asked incredulously.

That little Snorunt sure went missing a lot. She seemed to be more annoying than she was good.

"Do you mean your Snorunt? She's, well, sitting in my boat with your Drifloon. Eating," Jeff admitted sheepishly.

"Huh?" I stood up. "Hey! Mona, Lunar, get out of there! Agh, don't eat his food! That's not yours!"

I turned to Jeff, my apologetic face on. "I'm so sorry, they-"

He cut me off. "It's okay. I told them they could help themselves. I can always get more."

I stared at him, slanting my gaze a little. "Are you sure you want a baby Snorunt and a Drifloon eating your lunch?"

For some reason, he laughed at that. I didn't know why - I hadn't intended it as a joke.

"I come out here to my yacht every day to eat lunch. It's typically a very predictable affair, nothing exciting really happens. But then, today, I come out and find an unconscious girl and her Pokémon passed out on the dock!"

I suppose it was a little funny, but it was more embarrassing on my part. Then, I remembered something.

"How can Mona be eating? She was paralyzed!" I cast a sidelong glance at Jeff, who had opened his mouth to speak. "Oh, don't tell me, you cured her? Wow, what inconveniences we are..."

I was pretty mortified with the way that this had turned out, but Jeff seemed to take it all in stride.

"Don't worry. I'm a Pokémon Trainer, too. I have Paralyz Heals and things. Maybe, once your Pokémon have eaten, we can go to the Seashore House and get something for us to eat?" Jeff suggested.

My stomach growled at the thought. I had had no idea how hungry I was until he brought it up. I also had no idea where I was going in this city or even this region, but Jeff seemed to know the area, so what harm could it do to stick with him for a while?

"Cool, that would be great!" I told him truthfully.

* * *

><p>"She slipped away, Daddy! I didn't see it coming, really I didn't!"<p>

Her father griped and groaned about their bad luck for a full minute on his end of the line. She gripped her phone tighter.

"Don't worry, Daddy, I'll find her again. You can be sure of that."

Her father's cry of "how can you be sure?" could be heard clear all around the room and she was forced to hold her cell away from her ear so the noise wouldn't blow it out.

"Damn you, stop yelling at me! I've got it all under control!" she shouted back into the phone.

Her gaze flicked to the corner of the room where a backpack lay, unharmed. A familiar book poked out the top. She smiled coyly.

"Yup, Daddy, don't you worry. I have a backup plan."

With that, she hung up the phone and tossed it into her purse.

_**A/N: I ended this chapter in a little bit of mystery, just for a bit of plot advancement. :) Also, i_**f you want a better mental picture of Jeff, Google K.C. from Degrassi. That's basically what he looks like.**_**_


	13. Getting Around

Getting to the Seashore House was uncomfortably awkward, considering that Jeff and I had to pass a beach of guys in Hawaiian print swim trunks and girls in very skimpy bathing suits. It seemed that all of them had something to say to Jeff, who appeared to be popular in the area, about walking with "the sexy new girl".

In all honesty, 'sexy' was a new word for me. I had always been Zephi the wallflower, Zephi who was met and then forgotten, and ultimately, plain old Zephi. But never sexy Zephi. I wasn't sure if I liked this revelation or the way it made me squirm. I darted a quick "get me outta here!" glance at Jeff and he seemed to get the message. We practically ran the rest of the way to the Seashore House.

When we stepped through the door, I realized that the line stretched almost all the way to the door from the counter. I sighed in disappointment. My stomach growled again, rudely, in agreement.

"I don't like doing this, but you're starving, and these swimmers are probably all on at least their third trip here today," Jeff told me, sounding defeated.

I wondered what Jeff was going to do, but he didn't keep me waiting long. He moved his way right to the front of the line and plunked a bag of money down on the counter. The man behind the counter's face lit up.

"Ah, Jeff Backlot! Pleasure to see you, sir! What can we get you today? The usual?" the serving man asked, practically tripping over his words.

"Yes, please. And throw in a fillet-of-Finneon with Lum chips, as well, for my friend," Jeff said, throwing a quick smile at me over his shoulder.

Jeff thanked the man and returned to me, then sat himself down at a table to wait. I followed suit, the arrogance of what Jeff had just done finally sinking in.

"What was that?" I cried in disbelief.

"Everyone here is just satisfying their gluttony! They can wait for a girl that hasn't eaten all day to fill her stomach first, I'm sure. Seriously, Zephi, it's no big deal," Jeff defended himself.

I sat back, a little put out. I was also a little dumbstruck by Jeff's obvious authority over the people here. Who was this guy?

"Who are you?" I blurted out.

He looked at me with a half-smile. "The dreaded question. Although, I have to say, I didn't do a whole lot to hide my identity from you. I guess it's because I feel comfortable around you, rather than stuffy and uncomfortable like I do around a lot of other people. I don't feel so embarrassed about my heritage. To answer your question, though, I'm the only son of Jeffrey Backlot II, making me Jeffrey Backlot III."

I began to gape unattractively. "The-the-the s-son of the r-richest man in... Sinnoh? No. Way. What the hell? Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

He fidgeted. "I thought if you knew I was rich, you'd be biased towards me in some way."

I sat back, feeling frustrated, even though his motives made sense. Thankfully, my moodiness was short-lived. When I saw the over-eager waiter heading towards our table with two plates of delicious-looking food, my stomach rumbled with happiness.

My reaction, however, was drastically altered when I saw the lifeless Finneon staring blankly up at me from atop its Berry-decorated platter. I quickly averted my gaze, trying desperately to relieve my heaving belly.

"What's wrong? Don't you like it?" Jeff asked in shock and disbelief. It seemed not to have occurred to him that eating a _Pokémon_ may be unusual for me.

"You eat Pokémon?" was all I rudely managed to blurt out.

He made a face. "Don't you? Wait, don't answer that. I can tell by the look on your face that you probably think I'm a monster right now."

"Well..." I admitted with a gulp, "I don't know that _monster_ would be the right term, but... honestly?"

Jeff thought for a moment. "Hey, if you can't eat it, I'll trade with you. There's no Pokémeat in my Figy Dog. Maybe you'd like that better, but careful; it's hot."

I couldn't get past "Pokémeat". Ulp. Even the term was grotesque and just wrong. Was this the way those elitist rich people lived? I strongly suspected this was the kind of bias Jeff had been trying to avoid by not informing me of his true identity.

"Zephi?"

Jeff snapped me back to reality with his impatience. I guess the rich didn't like to be kept waiting. I nodded in response to his earlier proposition of switching lunches and we continued eating in silence. In fact, it was only when Jeff finished the fillet-of-Finneon that either one of us spoke again.

"Listen, I'm sorry if I'm coming across as conceited and/or arrogant to you. I have to keep reminding myself to stop being an ass and remember that not everyone is as fortunate as I am," Jeff said apologetically.

When he saw my offended look, he put his head in his hands and exhaled sharply.

"Damn," he muttered. "Exhibit A. Money makes you a conceited jerk that doesn't care about anyone but himself."

Because of the way he was sitting, all hunched over, I fought a strange urge to pat him on the back. For some reason, I laughed instead.

He looked up at me with an unreadable look on his face. But then, he laughed, too. It was a_ little_ funny that they supposedly taught the rich to be polite, yet it was so hard for them to actually be courteous to their inferiors.

"Do you have anywhere to go tonight?" Jeff asked, changing the topic.

I flushed, realizing that I had absolutely nowhere but the Pokémon Centre, which was always available. A rich guy like Jeff who was used to the very best of everything would not approve. So I couldn't very well tell him that at least I had Slateport's Centre.

"No," I told him simply, accepting that a half-truth was better than an outright lie.

"Well then, it looks like you're spending the night in the yacht. I'd be more polite and ask if you wanted to, but you're too modest, and you'd try to decline. Therefore, I'm forcing you to come with me," Jeff said with a chuckle.

With that, out the door we went and back to the SLateport harbour. Now that I got a better look, I noticed that there were a lot of nice boats there.

"You look like a Meowth in a jewellery store. Have you never been to a harbour before?" Jeff questioned me.

"No..." I replied slowly, realizing that I, in fact, had not. "I guess I haven't."

"That must also mean that you've never been out in a boat. Then today's your lucky day - there's enough daylight left to cruise to Dewford before sunset. Come on; in, in, in. We're leaving!" Jeff said in excitement, bustling me onto his yacht.

He sat me down near the back of the yacht and pointed to my waist.

"Release your Pokémon. They can enjoy the ride as well. I'm releasing mine," Jeff called as he moved to the stern of the boat.

I obliged and let Mona and Lunar out of their Poké Balls. Jeff did the same and my mouth dropped open in surprise when I saw his Pokémon.

Six fox-like Pokémon of different colours and slightly different appearances emerged from Jeff's Poké Balls. I recognized them immediately - I mean, who wouldn't? He had the first five evolutions of Eevee!

"Those are uber-rare!" I gushed, kneeling down to pet Jeff's Eeveelutions.

"Uh, you may not want to touch Umbreon. He can be territorial," Jeff warned me.

Sure enough, when my hand came within a foot of him, Jeff's Umbreon hissed and flatten his ears menacingly.

"Okay, Mr. Grouchy!" I scolded the Pokémon gently.

Jeff started the boat and manoeuvred it out towards the open sea. "Don't worry, I'm sure he'll warm up to you eventually. See, he was mistreated before I got him, so he doesn't trust anyone except me. And I'll tell you, it took me time, patience, and a whole lot of pain to get him to even look at me when I first received him in a trade."

Once we started actually moving, Jeff's Eeveelutions all leaped to the edge of the boat to watch the water go by. Every one, that is, except for his Flareon.

I enjoyed the quick breeze rushing past my face and reclined in my seat. I could get used to this beautiful summer weather all the time. In Sinnoh, especially where I lived, the climate had always been cold and windy. Mt. Coronet had an annoying tendency to dump random snowstorms onto Celestic Town whenever it felt like it. I told Jeff about this and he laughed.

"Where I come from in Sinnoh, it rains all the time. Seriously. Dad's mansion is really in a horrible spot - we live practically on top of a great big marsh," Jeff chuckled.

Spontaneously, Mona quit sunbathing from her position on the deck of the boat and leapt onto my lap, obviously thinking it more comfortable than the floor. Lunar, however, had attached himself to the flag pole of the boat with his tendrils and was casually floating along wherever the boat pulled him, like a fat flag of sorts.

I smiled at his antics and breathed out blissfully. Life was good.

* * *

><p>When we arrived in Dewford at last, it was getting late. Jeff docked the yacht and swung by a small restaurant in town to pick up dinner. We stayed at the yacht for the rest of the night, watching the sun sink lower and lower below the horizon.<p>

It's funny how quickly the sun goes down once it's started. You never really realize that it's getting darker until it's actually dark outside.

"Do you want to head down for the night?" Jeff asked. "There's enough room in the sleeping quarters for your Pokémon, too, so don't bother recalling them."

As it turned out, there was more than enough room in the sleeping quarters for all of us. I wasn't really surprised - this is the Backlot family we're dealing with here. I practically flew into bed, I was so tired, and Mona flew onto the bed after me. I curled up with my little Snorunt and shot one last glance at Lunar, who was floating mere inches from my head with his eyes closed. Then I fell into a deep sleep, for it had been a very long day.

_**A/N: I'm really sorry for not updating recently, but instead of making excuses, I'm going to be honest here. This chapter was extremely painful to write. I seriously can't stand writing random filler chapters. I hope my lack of interest in this chapter didn't show through in my writing, but if it did, I apologize. :S The next chapter will be better, I promise.**_


	14. Weather's Here, Wish You Were Great

I was jarred out of my sleep by a harsh pounding, an insistent voice and then the sudden absence of covers that made me curl up tighter, shivering.

"Zephi, get up! Someone's here to see you. Don't ask me how the hell she managed to find you here, but she says it's urgent."

Jeff's voice. I opened my eyes and gasped in surprise when a sudden crash of thunder echoed out my window. Jeff's worried face came into focus beside my head.

"Yeah, and it's also a torrential downpour out there. Anyway, you may wanna go see what your, uh, friend wants," Jeff muttered.

"Who...?" I slurred, my voice groggy with sleep.

"Zephi, get your lazy ass out of that boat right now! We have a job to do!" a familiar voice cried out, followed by a frenzied banging on a door.

Still rumpled, I opened the door of the yacht's sleeping quarters and a drenched, psychotic-looking Scarlett staggered in. Jeff ran up behind me and gaped unattractively at the mess the soaking Scarlett was making all over his upholstered yacht. She glared at him.

"Whassa matter, pretty boy? Never seen mud before? No big, we were just leaving. C'mon, Zeph!" she declared.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow the hell down!" I cried, finally finding my voice. "Where are we going? I'm still half-asleep and how did you even find me here and-"

"Shut up! Arceus, I can't stand the whiny weak. Move your ass and be out here in five. I don't like to be kept waiting!" Scarlett barked, then left the yacht, slamming the door behind her.

I was slightly worried about Jeff. I don't think the guy had seen that much mud and mess in his life and he looked dangerously pale.

"Jeff," I began, but he cut me off.

"You go. I don't want her coming back in here. Please, just go with her," he pleaded.

I looked at Jeff with surprise, but he just shot me a defeated glance in return. I forced down the sting of rejection, gathered my wits, recalled my Pokémon and left the boat, our unfinished business still hanging in the air.

* * *

><p>I seriously wished I had a raincoat as I raced across the island of Dewford with Scarlett in the pouring rain, trying desperately to block all thoughts of Jeff from my mind. Instead, I focused my attention on Scarlett, who was definitely on a mission, but the question was, what? She was infuriatingly keeping our motives a secret from me, so I had no clue where we were even running off to.<p>

"Stop!"

Scarlett's call was so sudden, I slipped and fell with a scream into one of the many puddles littering the beach. Scarlett looked down and laughed at me.

"Pathetic loser."

At least she offered a hand for me to help myself up. I took it gingerly and got up slowly, feeling extremely uncomfortable caked in mud.

"Get in the sub. We're going down," Scarlett demanded.

"In this?" I gestured to the merciless rain. "Why?"

Scarlett fixed her piercing emerald gaze on me. "Do it now, ask questions later."

* * *

><p>We headed down further and further into the depths of the sea on Route 105. Scarlett had told me that much at least.<p>

"You know, you shouldn't go around having one-night-stands with rich boys. They do _not _make good enemies," Scarlett quipped.

I went bright red and made a strangled noise as I fought to defend myself.

"I didn't!" I squeaked out. "Jeff is a _friend_, and besides, he found me!"

Scarlett chuckled a little from her place further forward in the submarine. "Doesn't seem very friendly towards you now that he knows the company you keep. No matter. He was a stuck-up asshat anyhow."

"Why are you being such a snob? You were so nice on the plane!" I cried, reaching the end of my tolerance with her insults.

"Nice? No, Zephi, I am never nice. I was doing what I had to if I wanted to survive. Call me a bitch if you must. I don't care. But don't ever call me nice - I hate the word," Scarlett snapped.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence.

"Can you please tell me what we're doing and why you had a random submarine all ready for us on the west end of Dewford?" I begged Scarlett hopefully.

"Kyogre," she grumbled.

"Pardon me...what?" I asked, sure that I hadn't heard her correctly.

"I said Kyogre! Now, no more questions. You'll understand eventually, I promise," Scarlett hissed, then directed her attention back to steering the sub.

Just then, Scarlett cursed in frustration as a sudden forceful current of water rocked the sub.

"Are we in danger?" I cried pitifully, gripping the side of the submarine.

Scarlett didn't answer, choosing instead to mutter to herself inaudibly. I strained to eavesdrop, wanting to know exact what she had gotten us into.

"Damn legendaries. We're almost there. Don't stop me, now. Hey..." Scarlett muttered, turning to me with a bright look on her face.

"Catch," she said, throwing her cell phone at me, which I hastily caught. "Check the news. Tell me what's going on near the Southern Sea. Please."

I tinkered around on the unfamiliar cell phone, trying to comprehend the many random buttons. Finally, I found something that brought up a screen that flashed "breaking news!" and the sky, which looked angry and red. Red skies were never a good thing, I knew. I turned up the volume to full on the phone so Scarlett could witness the report.

"We're here, live, at the predicted source of the abnormally vicious thunderstorm near Pacifidlog Town..." the reporter trailed off, clinging onto one of Pacifidlog's trademark huts as a wicked gust of wind tore at her body, threatening to blow her away.

"Sounds bad," Scarlett quipped, gritting her teeth as she focused on the sub, which was losing its battle to the harsh waters.

"The weather has seemingly gone bad overnight!" the reporter continued, smiling tensely for the sake of the cameras. "It appears that-"

She was cut off again as a cry split the region and tore through the phones weak speakers with a ton of static. The reporter screamed in terror.

"What was that? What's going on?" Scarlett demanded, abandoning steering the sub and snatching her phone out of my hand.

"Aaagh! Scarlett! The sub!" I squealed.

"You get it!" she said irritably, pressing buttons at warp speed with her eyes glued to the phone's tiny screen.

"_I can't steer a sub!_" I wailed in panic, my life flashing before my eyes.

I rushed to the helm and stared out the front window. I shrieked as I saw a wall right in front of us.

"Scarlett!" I screeched, cranking the wheel hard to the right.

"Give me that!" Scarlett snarled, taking the wheel back. "Look what you just did! We'll have to abort!"

I had no idea what I'd done to make Scarlett so furious, but first, I had to ask a more pressing question.

"Abort where?" I gulped.

"Put this on. Then follow me. A small task for a small brain," Scarlett snapped, throwing at me a wetsuit and insta-scuba-gear.

I was indignant and worked up into a lather that Scarlett kept bluntly insulting me, but what else could I do but listen? I started struggling into the scuba gear and looked up to see Scarlett already decked out in the stuff and opening the hatch.

"Wait!" I cried. "I'm almost finished!"

"Hurry up! You get thirty more seconds. Twenty-nine... okay let's go!" Scarlett said, opening the hatch fully and allowing water to come pouring in.

I bunched myself into the remaining gear and zoomed out after her, not wanting to drown in that metal prison. I was wickedly uncomfortable, but I didn't dare say so.

Scarlett swam down towards the wall that I'd narrowly avoided with the sub, which was now heading in the opposite direction, unmanned. I watched it go, then looked back to see that Scarlett had disappeared. Maybe deeper? I swam down as fast as I could and saw a scuba flipper disappearing into a cave of sorts. I followed it, wondering what Scarlett was up to.

Following the flipper led me into an underwater cavern with a ray of light filtering down from above. Scarlett headed up towards the origin of the light. I continued to swim up right behind her. When our heads broke the surface, Scarlett immediately began treading water, her gaze fixed on a small gap in the cliff wall in front of us.

I looked up and gasped as I saw a cave ceiling mere inches from the upturned tip of my nose. I felt claustrophobia setting in and I flailed in the water in discomfort. Had I bumped my head on that coming up, I'd be unconscious and half-drowned by now.

"This is Kyogre's lair."

Scarlett's declaration snapped me out of my shock. I stared at her. How did she know this?

"Follow me. We're going in. We must calm Kyogre down!" Scarlett said through gritted teeth.

She dove through the gap and I was hot on her tail. On the other side of the hole was pitch-blackness. I had no idea how Scarlett could keep going in the darkness, for I couldn't see past a metre in front of me. It was all I could do to keep from grabbing Scarlett's dangerously hazy flipper and hanging on to it so we wouldn't get separated.

Suddenly, the sides of the room lit up in an intricate red pattern, but for only a second. Before I could even process the change, we were plunged into darkness again. I continued my desperate attempts to keep Scarlett's flipper in view. The cave lit up again and this time I tried to strain my eyes ahead. I gasped, accidentally letting water into my mouthpiece as I did. I doubled over, coughing and spluttering, getting more seawater down my throat as I did.

I had seen Kyogre.

However, there were more important things to think about. I was in the process of drowning. I began to writhe in panic, hoping Scarlett would take some notice.

Instead, she reached into a small canvas bag that I hadn't noticed before attached to the waist of her scuba suit. The bag emitted a brilliant blue light the second she opened it and suddenly afterward, the water began to tremble. Was there such a thing as underwater earthquakes?

Then everything happened unbelievably quickly. A pair of eyes glowing an angry red glared straight at me out of the darkness, like they were blaming me, and only me, for something. Kyogre lit up in that same strange red pattern and promptly wailed out an ear-splitting cry that I feared would permanently damage my eardrums. Scarlett and I were immediately thrust upwards from a powerful current that had appeared directly underneath us. We flew up, up, up, then broke the surface and flew another bunch of metres to land on a sandy beach, soggy with rain and the thrashing of the ocean against the banks.

Scarlett was knocked out, but oddly, I managed to remain conscious. However, I was acutely aware of the dull pain from my arm and shoulder that were crushed at an awkward angle beneath the rest of my body.

Then, something weird happened.

Little swirls of darkness appeared around the broken side of my body and began to mend it, and before long, I was sitting up, feeling better than ever. Well, it would've been better than ever if our bodies weren't getting ravaged by the wicked storm that was splitting the skies above us. It was even worse than before, if that was possible. Thunder shook the ground and lightning slashed through the air.

The swirls of darkness finished at my arm and floated slyly to my ear.

"Remember..." murmured a sickeningly familiar voice that sent shivers down my spine.

Remember? Remember what? And where the hell did I know that voice from? It seemed to be right on the tip of my tongue, so close, yet so far. To my frustration, the black cloud that I hadn't felt in days began to drift in, clouding my thoughts and sealing those untouchable memories back into the place of no return.

"What have I done?" I said aloud, my words getting ripped away by the wind and rain and spiralling into non-existence.

_**A/N: Ah, Chapter 14 at last. Anyway, this Author's Note is going to be a long one, because I have some unfinished business to attend to with a rather...sobering...review. MidsummerMoonlight99, if you're reading this, I'd like you to know that you have a good eye and a lot of nerve. Everything you said in your review was absolutely true, and as a result, for a while I believed that I had ruined the story because of my poor character development. That said, I wish you had not said the things you said, due to the fact that I'm too far into the story to change any personalities now. If you had reviewed near the beginning of the story, I would have still been able to change personalities easily without completely changing my character. Now I'm sorry that my characters are unsatisfactory to you, but it is too late to change anything now. You may not have intending any hard feelings, but, since the suggestions you made will only make my characters different characters entirely, I'm no longer enthusiastic about writing this story. However, I will not stop writing it. I know I have readers who like my characters just as they are; boring, Sue-ish, typical, and too perfect. So, I will learn to embrace my badly developed characters, as I hope you will as well.**_

_**I did appreciate your compliments on the death mark and the original plot, though. Thank you.**_


	15. Une Horrible Révélation

Scarlett came to not long after the mysterious dark swirls repaired my shattered side. After a few minutes, she sat up slowly and looked at the storm-stricken sky. Her face creased in an expression that I could not read she looked forlornly at me, rain lashing her fairly delicate upturned face.

Then she quickly looked away, a disgusted expression marring her complexion.

"What?" I asked her, offended that she had made such an awful face after looking at me.

"I should be asking you that question!" Scarlett burst out. "What the hell happened to your face?"

_My face? _"Wha-?" I mumbled.

Scarlett tossed me a convenient pocket mirror from a pocket within her scuba gear. Probably her jeans pocket, most likely. I opened the compact little thing and made an unattractive squeak of a sound when I saw my reflection. If I had been beautiful yesterday, I was the polar opposite today.

My face was deathly pale and dead-looking, my cheeks sallow and my eye sockets black with hollowness, very similar to a corpse in the beginning stages of decomposition. It was almost as if my skin was rotting while I was still alive. Reflexively, my hand shot to my wrist to check for a pulse, my jaw gaping unattractively, and I was powerless to stop it. The pulse that I found at my wrist was irregular - weak and sporadic. If I didn't know better, I'd say I was transforming into a zombie at a scarily rapid clip.

My fingernails possibly frightened me more than becoming a living dead. They were, right before my very eyes, growing longer and longer. I watched them in horror until finally, at thirty millimetres long, they stopped, forming a vicious looking point at the end of each nail.

"Uh, Zephi, a-are you all right?"Scarlett stuttered, that same unreadable expression on her face. It wasn't fear, but maybe something similar?

"No..." I answered honestly.

Just then, the answer to my problem came in the form of the dark swirls, back again to pay me another unwelcome visit.

_Your soul is fading, Zephi... Must renew it... Drain one, a new one, a new soul... Or else your body will die, with you inside it... You don't want to suffer, do you... do you...?_

I most certainly did not want to suffer, to die again. But I also didn't want to take another life, just to continue my own. What an awful way to live.

_I refuse! _I declared to the darkness that was swarming around me now like a swarm of Combee around their hives.

The darkness was not pleased. Immediately, a sense of manic terror struck inside me as my heart shuddered like it had been shot. I clutched at my chest, my vision wiped clean by the grotesque vision of my collapsing innards. My lungs, heart, kidneys and various other internal organs blew holes as if they'd been set upon by an expert sniper, blasting gunshot after gunshot into their soft flesh. Blood spurted out everywhere and my heart fought desperately to keep the little blood it had left circulating around my ever-solidifying body, which was now cold as ice.

I had not expected this suffering. The darkness had warned me of this, but even I had not been anticipation the excruciating, unbearable pain. Before long, the my organs would implode and my body would be reduced to the state it had been lying at the bottom of the sea near Pacifidlog, head ripped off and everything.

The thought of being alive while I was beheaded caused me to hastily submit in panic and terror.

_All right! I give up! Show me who I must kill! _I shrieked internally to the darkness.

I fully expected my unfortunate victim to be Scarlett, but the darkness surprised me by showing me a vision of the outside of a very familiar yacht.

No.

This was definitely worse.

In a trance induced by the searing internal pain of imploding organs, I ran across the beach towards the yacht , desperate to get my relief. I felt like a drug addict - I would literally do anything to get my fix. In the case, though, it was a matter of life or death, though I wasn't sure that made this any better.

I yanked open the door of the yacht to find Jeff just sitting on the bed that I had occupied just this morning. He had been waiting for me, though I was sure, not for this. He looked up hopefully when he heard the door fly open, but, almost immediately, horror filled his eyes at what he saw.

Like in a very clichéd horror movie, right before the murderer kills its victim, a bright flash of lightning struck behind me, reflecting my terrifying self back at me in the wide, glassy eyes of Jeff, my first soul donor.

Eh, who was I kidding? This was not donation, this was murder.

I struck like the thunderclap that followed the lightning and sent six thick strings of darkness straight at Jeff, who made no move to defend himself, for he was paralyzed by fear. The darkness encapsulated him like a Bug Pokémon's String Shot, only about ten times darker and more sick-looking. Then the darkness tore into his skin viciously, ripping through everything in search of the boy's soul - the grand prize.

The screams of agony and death filled my ears and bounced around tauntingly in my eardrums, echoing over and over and over again in my head. The smell of death, blood and guts filled my nostrils and sort of hung there, a stench that just added to my pain and suffering.

Why wasn't this working? Was I ripping Jeff inhumanely to shreds for nothing? The feeling centre in my brain must have been turned off at the moment, because I still hadn't really registered killing my friend as an emotion. Right now it was simply _"get rid of this pain, NOW!" _instead of _"holy shit, I'm killing somebody!" _as it should be.

Believe me you, this was all worth it when the darkness struck gold. Latching onto his soul, the darkness formed a cocoon around the precious life and ripped it from his chest, immediately slamming through my chest and bringing my dying process to a crashing halt. From my toes all the way up to the top of my head, I felt my entire body and internal organs being all refreshed to their former glory. I didn't need to see myself to know that I was beautiful again.

Of course, the end of my suffering meant that the feeling centre had been turned back on again.

I was shaken violently by the reality of what I had just done and was shocked completely shitless. I stared straight into Jeff's now unseeing hazel eyes and held his gaze for a minute in utter speechlessness. The world seemed to pause for a long moment as Jeff, who had been temporarily held up by some mysterious force, finally fell slowly down towards the ground. I waited a moment longer before shifting my gaze downward to Jeff's pile of seething body and tears sprang immediately to my eyes and I let out a strangled gasp.

Sitting on top of the mass of guts and innards was Jeff's severed head, perfectly unharmed and practically alive, if it weren't for its pale, deathly appearance. A scar in my mind as a reminder of the atrocious deed I had just carried out.

_"NO!" _I screamed, the sound tearing through the moment of silence, in sync with the next clap of thunder that yanked me back to my body on the beach.

"Zephi? Zephi? Can you hear me? Are you all right? Are you dead? No? Then breathe! Do something, damn it!" Scarlett fretted, kneeling over me and staring down at my previously unmoving form.

Now, I sat up with a jerk and the tail-end of my wail from inside the yacht, narrowly missing Scarlett's face on my way up.

"Z-Zephi?" Scarlett spluttered, clearly surprised.

_"I killed him! I did! Jeff's dead and I did it! I killed him! I killed him! I killed him! I..."_

I collapsed back onto the beach, curling up into a fetal position and wailing as if my life was about to end, my eyes open and wild. I was flailing and thrashing around, so Scarlett tried to calm me from afar.

Her efforts were futile. I was inconsolable.

"What the hell happened to you, Zephi? You're mad! Utterly and completely mad! You belong in a nuthouse! Calm _down!_"

Suddenly, I quieted and just lay there. I must've been in shock because I was sure I wasn't processing right.

"I'm calling... need a helicopter... we gotta get away... Lavaridge..."

I caught snippets of Scarlett's soliloquy in my temporary slowed state. I didn't stick around in the half-conscious world for long before I, unbelievably, fell asleep, despite the pounding rain, roaring thunder, and flashing lightning.

My last even somewhat conscious thought was:

I... am a monster.

_**A/N: Wrote this all in one night. A pleasant surprise from a lazy ass like me. :) Hope you didn't think this chapter was too over-the-top, but I figured that it was past time to identify the mysterious "death mark".**_

**_It made me happy to see that my regular reviewers (you know who you are) still have faith in my characters, though, instead of deeming them hopeless like I had for a while, there. It has inspired me to at least try to improve on and develop my characters a little more, so, within a few chapters, we will be focusing on Zephi's Pokémon and how Evelyn, Lara, and Devin are faring._**


	16. The Story Behind Dragoness Scarlett

I woke up encased in a warm fuzzy feeling that warmed me from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. I kept my eyes closed, afraid to open them, for I figured the feeling would go away if I did. I just floated there, in semi-conscious heaven, completely relaxed for a change.

"Hey Zephi, I know you're awake. Might as well just snap out of it already," came Scarlett's voice out of the haze.

Grr. I'd been found out. I very slowly, very reluctantly eased open my eyes and jumped up with a yelp as I took in my new surroundings. I had been nose-deep in hot water!

"You're lucky I don't snore!" I growled, turning on Scarlett, who was floating beside me with a smug look on her face.

"I figured if you were, you'd choke on the water and wake up anyhow," Scarlett explained, shrugging indifferently.

I thought about how close I had come to potentially drowning. For some reason, it struck me as funny and I glared at Scarlett, slipping back underwater so that only my eyes peeked out over the surface at her. I narrowed them comically like a secret investigator interrogating his suspect. Scarlett laughed, and it surprised me at how wonderful it sounded.

I don't think that I'd ever heard Scarlett laugh before. In retrospect, though, I suppose everything we'd experienced thus far had been serious business, and therefore, not a laughing matter.

I blew bubbles in thought, thinking back to what had happened before I went to sleep. And then it hit me. My eyes widened as I recalled last night with painfully graphic detail. The lust, the torture, the kill, and then finally... the sense of satisfaction I felt once the deed had been done.

A large air bubble escaped from my mouth as the water smothered my strangled gasp and I started thrashing around in the spring, trying desperately to drown myself. I no longer wanted to live carrying such a huge guilt on my conscience. As if she had been expecting this, Scarlett yanked me up and looked me straight in my wild eyes, an iron grip around my torso.

That look from before was back - somewhat like fear, but not quite. "Zephi, stop. You _have_ to forget about whatever's causing you to act so demented. _Relax._"

There was something eerily powerful about Scarlett's tone and, as it had on the island, it helped me get a hold on my sanity again. Obeying Scarlett, the terror of before began to wear off until it had faded into the backdrop of my mind.

Slightly disoriented, I just sat there, floating idly in the spring until Scarlett made an attempt at conversation.

"You've been acting really weird lately. Maybe what you need is a few days to just chill and be a Trainer again. What do you say we go train on Mt. Chimney? It will give you a chance to actually _bond_ with your Pokémon as well; I get the feeling that you really don't know each other much at all. I can help with that - I can almost read the minds of my own dragons," she offered.

I agreed wholeheartedly, thinking a break to train and get to know my Pokémon would be just what the doctor ordered. I also wanted to see the legendary connection between Dragoness Scarlett and her dragons.

"How long have you had your dragons anyway, Scarlett?" I asked, genuinely curious.

Scarlett's eyes grew misty. "Ten years. I hatched them myself, well, all except Clover. She was a gift. A gift from my... my..." Scarlett paused and closed her eyes briefly, obviously battling emotions that threatened to overcome her. "My mother."

I felt the need to comfort Scarlett, but what was I supposed to say to this? 'I'm sorry'? 'Oh, how awful'? I didn't exactly know what had happened to the woman. I wasn't given the chance to interject, though, because Scarlett pressed on.

"My mother had an Altaria named Shamrock. She'd had an Egg earlier the year I was born, but the miraculous thing was that it hatched the very day I was born, December 31st, the very last day of the year. My mother had insisted that it was meant to be, and from then on, the hatched Swablu was decreed _my _Pokémon.

"Of course, my mother still fed it and cared for it, because I was only a baby, capable of no more than crying and sleeping. But, whenever I wanted it, my mother would bring to me. When I could talk, I came up with my little Swablu's name almost immediately - she was a 'Little Shamrock', as I liked to call her, so she became Clover.

"I began training Clover when I was five. Although, at that point in my life, training a Pokémon meant training for beauty pageants - the kid version of Pokémon Contests. I grew up in Opelucid City in the Unova region so, it being a very large city and all, pageants were never scarce. Clover and I were quite good; we always placed well, especially because, most of the time, Clover was the most sophisticated Pokémon there. Most of the other competitors only had Lillipups, Patrats, Pidoves, and the occasional Purrloin.

"Three years later, though, something happened. My father happened. He's the sort of guy who never spent any time with his family, always here, there, and everywhere we _weren't_." Scarlett stopped to swear nastily, as if remembering a very bad memory. "And I now know why. Scum of the earth, he is. All he wanted was my mother's money. It was the only reason he married her in the first place, and the reason he killed her, too."

I gasped. Murdered! By her own husband! My eyes flashed, just thinking about how devastating it must've been for Scarlett - at only eight years old nonetheless! "She was murdered by your father? How terrible he must have been!"

Scarlett opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again quickly. Then she continued with the most shocking part of her life story yet. "After my mother was murdered, my father left again, and I left for my mother's dragons' cave on Route 11, which was in a cove behind a waterfall. Since my father knew the location, I made them leave in order to save themselves. I was sure he'd come back for them. I was afraid he'd use them forcefully and I didn't want them to get hurt. However, each of them had had an Egg, and they couldn't take their Eggs with them. So, I assured the dragons that I would take good care of them. I think it was only because I reminded them so much of my mother that they entrusted me with their beloved baby dragons. Then, that night, I tucked the six Eggs into one of my favourite beauty pageant props - a frilly stroller - and snuck out. That's how I became a Trainer."

There was an entire minute of awkward silence following Scarlett's reminiscence. Neither of us knew what to say next following something so... personal. Eventually, though, Scarlett broke the silence by restating her previous request, the offer she had proposed before any of her childhood memories had been spoken.

"So, what do you say? Do you want to learn some tricks from the expert?" Scarlett offered.

"Most definitely," I replied, lifting myself out of the spring with a smile.

* * *

><p>If things had been sentimental before, there was no trace of that now. Everything was entirely back to normal, it seemed.<p>

"Okay, first things first," Scarlett instructed. "Release your Pokémon and give them to me for inspection."

Mentally, I gulped. Inspection? What if Scarlett found something wrong with Lunar or Mona? I hesitated before throwing out my Pokémon, second-guessing on whether or not this was a good idea after all.

"You don't even know how to release your Pokémon? For Arceus' sake, _how _did you manage to defeat Gardenia?" Scarlett howled, swiping my Poké Balls from my quivering fingers.

Wait a second.

"How did _you _know I beat Gardenia?" I asked her suspiciously.

"The badge was right there on your bag! I saw it before you were blown out of the jet!" Scarlett snapped, suddenly on the defensive.

"Okay!" I held up my hands in defeat. "It was an innocent question! Sorry if I offended you."

Scarlett huffed and released Lunar and Mona. She gasped.

"What?" I squealed, trying to hide my face. Obviously, they had not passed inspection.

Scarlett took a deep breath and I hung my head, ready for the onslaught.

"Where do I even start? Look at your Drifloon's surface - it's apparent that he's lacking proper nutrition because, even though Drifloons are supposed to be _royal _purple, this Pokémon is closer to _lilac! _And your Snorunt! She's so thin and frail, not to mention the warmer coat she's _supposed _to have grown over her triangular body is missing! Oh, I'd have a good mind to just claim these poor things for myself!"

"How can you possibly know all this stuff from looking at my Pokémon for only a few seconds? I didn't notice any of this and they're _my _Pokémon!" I wailed, shamed and utterly embarrassed.

"Well, since you obviously know _a lot _less than I'd thought, it looks like I'll have to take you through the basics as well," Scarlett overdramatized. Then she turned to me. "What are your Pokémon's fighting styles at least?"

Scarlett met my blank stare with a melodramatic gasp. "_What_ do they teach Pokémon trainers these days? I have to explain this, too?"

Despite her obvious disapproval, the Dragoness squared her shoulders and commanded Lunar to attack an unsuspecting Numel on the other side of the steep and craggy path that led up to Mt. Chimney.

"Fight it your way. Commence!" she demanded.

Lunar just looked at her in utter confusion, similar to the way I had when she'd mentioned fighting styles and Scarlett shook her head critically.

"Looks like he's the dependent type. I'll bet this is a naïve Drifloon that you have here. And, unless I'm wrong, he appears to have a lower than usual IQ. Omoia, my Flygon, hatched a little...dim...but I was able to boost her IQ, so don't worry. For Lunar, this is nothing a box of Purple Gummies can't fix."

I didn't even bother asking Scarlett how she knew this. I already knew it would surely be beyond me. "What about Mona? She's timid, right?"

"Wrong," Scarlett crowed, inspecting Mona. "Upon closer inspection, I'm quite sure she couldn't be less timid. She's _definitely _impish, no doubt about it."

I was shocked. _Mona, impish? _"No way! You must have made a mistake. Mona was _cowering_ behind my leg when I sent her out to battle the Roserade in my Gym battle against Gardenia!"

"Mona was simply playing games. It's part of her nature. Although, if it would please you to be right for a change, I was mistaken when I said Mona was missing her outer coat. It seems that she has a rarer ability than the typical Ice Body - she possesses Inner Focus, which prevents her from flinching. Quite useful, if you'd ask me," Scarlett prattled.

It was indeed a useful ability, although I was still confused about the purpose of these abilities, natures and other complicated things. "Anything else I should know?"

Scarlett winked at me. "Tons. We're only just getting started."

_**A/N: OMG, I'm alive. :D I really hate using real life as an excuse for the loooooong wait (and it's one of my pet peeves, too) but, unfortunately, I'm using it. I'm such a hypocrite. D: At least those of you that go to a non-semestered school would understand. If those even exist beyond hick country, where we actually have Bring-Your-Tractor-To-School day. :3 I've been so insanely busy with exams and summatives I've actually died. Three times. And then pulled a Zephi and resurrected. :p Only four more left and then it will be summer for me which means updating more. Lots more. Yay! :)**_


	17. The Perfect Pokémon Trainer?

_**Foreword: Scarlett's Dragonite's and Hydreigon's names have been eliminated from Chapter 11 because I have changed them. I didn't have a naming scheme for her other six dragons (excluding Clover who has a separate reason for her name) before, but now I do. So, their names will be re-introduced later on. They weren't important before, anyway. Forget what they were - if you even remembered - please.**_

Scarlett proceeded to explain how some Pokémon only have a single ability, which means there will be no physical difference in the Pokémon, ability-wise. It was a lot to take in and I hurriedly made mental notes on everything Scarlett told me. I didn't want to miss a thing.

"So, if you want to look at the difference between abilities on an exhibit that's not Mona, here, let me show you Dengen." Scarlett fished an odd black Pokéball from her belt that I'd never seen before and moved to throw it before she noticed me goggling at it.

"What's the matter? You like my Pokéball? Yeah, it's not your average red and white ball capsule, that's for sure - it's a Luxury Ball! It makes your Pokémon friendlier upon capture, likely because it's so comfortable inside," Scarlett explained with pride prominent in her voice. "They're _really_ expensive."

I glanced at Lunar's and Mona's plain red and white Poké Balls and sighed. How pathetic. I'd been forced to capture Mona against her will at some point along the line because, due to recent events, it was much too dangerous to have her floating around in backpacks and on shoulders. I pledged that if I ever had enough money, I would buy my Pokémon Luxury Balls like Scarlett, or at least Mona, who would hopefully be a little less averse to being encapsulated if the Ball was comfortable.

"So, without further ado... Dengen, you are needed!" Scarlett flung the Luxury Ball and it opened wide, emitting a beautiful red flash and a humongous lime green dragon Pokémon that had a shiver-inducing axe protruding from both sides of its neck. The red flash, I had to admit, was a very fashionable improvement over the typical white flash a Poké Ball made upon opening.

But, back to the Pokémon. It was quite honestly scaring the hell out of me, what with its massive size and fearsome appearance. "What _is _it?"

"Zephi, meet my Haxorus, Dengen. Her name is Japanese for 'power'. It's because her attack power is absolutely unbeatable when defending her team, or me, in battle. Now, Haxorus can have two abilities - Rivalry and Mold Breaker; Dengen here has Rivalry. These abilities can only be determined in battle, whereas Ice Body is a blatantly obvious physical difference."

In my opinion, it was hardly 'blatantly obvious'. But, that aside, I was excited at the thought of seeing Scarlett's Haxorus in action. "So, I get to watch Dengen battle something?"

"Sure, why not? It will display her ability and maybe you'll learn something. However, I can't just battle _anything_. My dragons will get restless battling inferiors and they start to become disobedient. I would like to show you my stuff in a Gym battle. With Flannery, the Lavaridge Gym leader!"

My face was a question mark. Scarlett hadn't battled the Lavaridge Gym, yet? Was she even a registered Trainer? Scarlett saw my befuddled expression and smiled slightly. "Yes, I am registered to do such a thing. In fact, I'm looking forward to it. I've never battled a Gym leader before."

No. Way. "You're _kidding! _You've been on the scene for over ten years and you've never challenged a Gym leader? Why not?" I practically shrieked at her.

"I've never felt the need. I spent my time foiling criminals, not Gym leaders. To each his - or her - own, I suppose." Scarlett shrugged and surveyed my Pokémon as they stood purposely by her feet, waiting for instructions. I felt a sharp pang of jealousy deep in my stomach. I couldn't help but think, judging by their behaviour, that Mona and Lunar actually liked Scarlett better than their own Trainer. Was I doing something wrong, or was it just obvious - even to Pokémon - that Scarlett was a much better Trainer than I was?

"Instead of raving about Gym leaders, though, let's identify your Pokémon's fighting styles. I can challenge Flannery tomorrow. I promised you training, so training you shall receive. Mona, there's a wild Spoink! Attack!" Scarlett ordered.

Mona toddled towards the wild Pokémon excitedly, unfortunately making so much noise doing so that the Spoink was startled and the element of surprise was ruined. The Spoink, angry to be interrupted, faced Mona with an battle _oink_. I waited for Scarlett to give Mona an attack order but, much to my surprise, she just stood there, watching intently.

I didn't want to see my baby Pokémon get hurt, so I took matters into my own hands. "Mona, use Bite!"

Mona glared at me (well, narrowed her eyes at me, the grin remained plastered on her face as always) and focused instead. Suddenly, there were ten Monas that danced around the Spoink, leaving the bouncy pig Pokémon stunned and confused. However, I was still very insulted that my own Pokémon had so openly refuted my orders. I frowned at Scarlett, wondering how this was supposed to be _training._

Scarlett crossed her arms. "Zephi, you can't interfere. In case you didn't realize, the only reason Mona's ignoring you is because you aren't even considering her when you ask her to fight. Pokémon have opinions, too. And, in many cases, they know better than their Trainers the best attack to use in the situation-"

"But Mona's a _baby_!" I blurted out in contradiction, interrupting Scarlett. "I'll admit, I don't know a whole lot about being a Trainer, but how can she know more than I do? I've been on this Earth so much longer than she has! Besides, I thought Trainers were _never _supposed to let their Pokémon control them!"

For some reason, I'd made Scarlett really angry. She was positively fuming. I didn't what I'd said that had been so inflammatory, but something sure had her _pissed_. "You just don't get it, do you? You can't treat Pokémon like they're your slaves! You're supposed to be a _team_. You think you can just give a Pokémon any order you feel like and it will obey? Well, you're _wrong_, Zephi Weston, all _wrong._ Mona, at least, won't just roll over and play dead when you tell her to do something utterly stupid. Y'know, it's Trainers like you that I'm trying to get rid of!"

My jaw was slowly dropping throughout her entire tirade, but when she reached her conclusion, my jaw hit the ground. "What do you mean by 'get rid of'?"

Scarlett looked frustrated. "Nothing," she said sharply. "All I meant was that I want to fix all the Trainers like you that treat their Pokémon like robots, or something."

How dare she? I was fully aware that my Pokémon were not _robots_ and I didn't treat them like they were, either! What did she want me to do? Stand there like a complete idiot, just _watching_ my Pokémon battle, get hurt, and lose? Trainers were Trainers, and I told her so in no uncertain terms.

Scarlett backed slowly away from me. "You're just like everyone else. Everyone wants to be a 'Pokémon Master'. Well, guess what, honey? You're already there. You're already 'mastering' your Pokémon around, so there you go. And _that_, darling, is why I don't battle Gym leaders."

With that, Scarlett turned forcefully away from me and ran up Jagged Path towards Mt. Chimney. I'd gathered, in the short time that we'd been here and not on the island, that we'd been airlifted to Lavaridge Town at the base of Mt. Chimney to attempt to relax me a little more. And it had been working, up until now.

"Fine! Be that way!" I yelled after her. "The only Trainer that does anything right in your mind is yourself, and apparently everyone else just does it wrong, because you're the only one who can _possibly_ be a perfect Trainer! Right?" I waited a moment for her response. When it didn't come, I tried again, figuring she hadn't heard. "Right?"

There was still no answer after my second attempt and I sat down on a rock in frustration. That had been a really good comeback. I was proud of it. The least she could've done was given me a new insult to try and reverse back onto her. After a couple more minutes of seething, guilt set in, and, hating myself, I trudged up Mt. Chimney after Scarlett.

_**A/N: Really short chapter that will advance plot, you just don't know how yet. Sorry for the shortness, but it was necessary. Oh, and, did you see what I did there? With the Poké Ball vs. Pokéball? Probably not, huh? Well, the Pokéball is the the ball capsule device in general and the Poké Ball is the actually red and white ball. Because the Poké Ball is actually a type of Pokéball. Eh, lame, I know. D: Also, I have decided to do review responses from now on since I'm getting lots of questions. :) So, all questions asked from Chapters 1-17 will be answered now except for the ones that I simply can't answer without giving something away. That would spoil the story. D: So, hopefully all questions that I can answer will be answered, if they haven't been answered already! They're in alphabetical order by pen name, too, because I'm a dork. 8)**_

_**HoennRegionMasterHK17: I can assure you -and everybody - her friends have NOT fallen off the face of the Earth. After two more chapters, I guarantee to grant them the perspective for a chapter to see exactly what they're up to.**_

_**MidsummerMoonlight99: I'm actually so glad you think I'm improving. C: I've always been the sort of person that goes "what would that be like in real life?" at everything in Pokémon such as abilities and training and personalities, so I decided to give them a lot of depth in my story as sort of a way to explain those vague aspects of Pokémon to everyone. I'm glad you and others like my explanation! To answer your Gummi question, playing the Mystery Dungeon games, I always thought of them as like the "power veggies" like carrots, broccoli, and such of the Pokémon world, but with an unhealthier name. So, I'm guessing they'd be like mental stimulants, then, that naturally enhance IQ through healthiness. Sorta. :) And yes, Scarlett has the six dragons that she hatched on her belt and Clover's Pokéball aside, hidden, because carrying seven Pokémon is against the rules. She's strictly an emergencies-only Altaria.**_

_**RushedFast: Well, Jeff died. I had planned it to happen to one character and I figured it would create the biggest metaphorical splash if it was him. Sneak preview into future chapters - the media. That's all I'm going to say. ;) For the missing pieces between the recent chapters, I hope this chapter clears that up and I think it will. Also, I really do love the way you tell me exactly what's done right and what could be done better, because it's helping me out a lot. :D**_

_**Sniper Mudkip: I love the support in times of need! :3 It's great that you like the story, though, because I was inspired by reading yours, believe it or not. There are still some elements of The Canadian Journey that I wish I had in Conspiracy, but you may hoard them until I discover your secret or figure out a way to match your skill and put them in my story, too! :)**_

**_Wow. This was a very long Author's Note. At least it made up for the pathetic chapter length._**


	18. Meanwhile, Back in Sinnoh

_And, brought to you from the front page of the Hoenn Gazette, the breaking news that has stunned the whole Pokémon World! Jeffrey Backlot III has been found, dead and mauled, in the sleeping quarters of his private yacht in the Dewford marina. This case has stumped all police and investigators, for there was no evidence or prints left behind by the murderer. This is-_

Feeling dangerously sick to her stomach, Evelyn hastily jumped up and snapped off the TV, trying to calm her nausea. The reporters had started showing pictures of the crime scene, all bloodied and ravaged, and she'd been forced to turn off the report, for fear that she'd lose her lunch right then and there. Evelyn was so squeamish that even a bead of blood made her queasy.

"Ev! We were watchin' that!" Lara protested from her spot in the middle of the Pokémon Centre's sitting room. "And when I say that, I speak for _everyone_."

Evelyn looked around suddenly in embarrassment. Right. Everyone else in the sitting room had been watching the breaking news and were now glaring daggers at her for the interruption. The man sitting beside Evelyn got up stiffly and turned the TV back on, flashing the gory and disturbing pictures of this Jeffrey guy's yacht back in Evelyn's face.

The wave of nausea was back and more threatening than ever. With a hurried "I'll be back" to Lara, Evelyn ran off to the washroom. No one seemed upset to see her go.

It was a very close call. Evelyn barely made it to the toilet before she fell to her knees and succumbed to her nausea. A few minutes later, a frightened "Oh!" reminded Evelyn that, in her haste, she had forgotten to close and lock the stall door behind her.

"Oh, I'm so sorry! Let me just-" Evelyn started to explain, before she recognized the girl that she'd just scared.

"Sophie?"

"Excuse m-? Oh, wait, you're that girl I got Concorde from! Hi!" Sophie gave a little wave, obviously still a little grossed out by Evelyn's being sick, but attempting to be friendly nonetheless.

"Concorde? Is that what you nicknamed the Feebas? How is it doing by the way?" Evelyn asked hurriedly, shuffling quickly to the sink to wash up and appear presentable again.

"Wonderful!" Sophie chirped, undoubtedly delighted that Evelyn had asked. "She evolved!"

"E-Evolved? Already?" Evelyn spluttered, completely ruining her feeble attempt at trying to gargle politely. None of her own Pokémon had evolved yet, and though they were quite strong, they lacked the stat boost that an evolved Pokémon gained.

"Not long after you traded her to me, actually," Sophie explained. "My _Maman _is a pro Poffin-maker. She was able to make dry-flavoured Poffins that maxed Concorde's beauty in no time. Then she just... evolved."

"You don't say," Evelyn muttered under her breath, feeling the first tingles of regret coming on. If a Feebas had been so easy to evolve, she should have kept it for herself!

_But then you wouldn't have Skorupi! _a little voice inside Evelyn's head niggled. _When it evolves into a Drapion, it will be able to sweep this evolved Feebas easily, so cut the self-pity!_

"How's my old Skorupi doing, anyway?" Sophie ventured, noting Evelyn's change in mood.

"Fine! Great actually," Evelyn boasted. "I think you'd be surprised. Do you want to test its strength in a battle?"

Sophie looked surprised, as if this had been the last thing she'd expected Evelyn to say. "Um... sure, I suppose. One on one, then, or... how many Pokémon do you have?"

"Two," Evelyn shot back, refusing to give up her bold front so easily.

"W-Well then, if I have three, maybe a two on two would be better, then... Do you want to just do that?" Sophie fidgeted uncomfortably and began to nibble a fingernail.

Before Evelyn could answer, the bathroom door swung open and Lara came in with a worried expression. "Ev? You okay in here? It's been- Oh, there y'are. What's goin' on?"

"Sophie and I were just heading out to battle. Wanna watch?" Evelyn asked, unable to keep a hint of pride out of her voice.

"Oh, no y'aren't. It's rainin' Glameows and Growlithes out there. Hey, that's a really silly saying, y'know? A Growlithe wouldn't be out in the rain if it knew what was good for it, bein' a Fire-type an' all... Oh, never mind. All I was try'n'a say was that it's rainin' too hard to battle outside," Lara blathered.

"Who cares about a little rain?" Evelyn scoffed. "_Real _trainers will battle - rain or shine! Now, let's go, Sophie. Lara, you can come if you want, or you can stay and watch the news in a stuffy, crowded sitting room. Up to you!"

_It ain't just "a little rain"! Gee, Evelyn sure knows how to get her way, no matter what! _thought Lara in exasperation. _And I'm not that easily swayed... I think. _Against her better judgment, Lara followed the girls outside, muttering under her breath the whole way.

The moment the girls stepped outside, Evelyn began to think that maybe she shouldn't have been so rash after all. Rain was pouring down in sheets from the dark and ominous-looking sky that cast down a terrifying lightning bolt every once in a while. Sophie was looking really nervous now, gnawing furiously on her right thumbnail while staring up at the sky as if she, like Evelyn, was going to be sick.

_No matter the weather_, thought Evelyn foolishly, _I will battle! It's what real Trainers would do._

"Let's hold this Pokémon battle on the bridge across the canal. Lara, you can be the judge," Evelyn decided.

Since the girls had been residing at the Canalave Pokémon Centre for the past few days in preparation for challenging Byron, the Canalave Gym leader, what better venue to hold the battle than the city's drawbridge?

"Oh, no, I'm not bein' no judge. I discouraged the idea of a Pokémon battle in the first place, so there ain't no way that I'm judgin' it," Lara said firmly, crossing her arms to prove her point.

"Why didn't you just stay inside, then, if you disapprove _so_ badly!" Evelyn snapped. "I'm sure Zephi would see this as the valuable training opportunity that it is!"

Upon hearing the name of their lost friend, the air was charged with tension, making the situation much worse.

Lara glared at Evelyn, as if she'd just accused it of being her fault that Zephi had disappeared. In a roundabout way, though, it was everyone's fault, including Zephi's. "I can't believe you just said that. You know we're doin' everythin' we can to find her, Ev."

It was true. Ever since her disappearance in Eterna Forest, (into the Old Chateau, specifically) they had immediately enlisted the police's help to find their lost friend. There had been a thorough investigation of the old mansion and it had been blocked off to the public since the three weeks ago Zephi had gone missing. As for Evelyn and Lara, they had pledged to watch the news every day for any signs of the missing girl, and they had also continued to search the Sinnoh region for her, all the while training and becoming stronger to keep their minds off the horrible feeling they both had that she was no longer in the region.

As for Devin, who had previously been travelling with the group, he had remained in Eterna City, for he did live there, after all. Besides, the increasing amount of media attention that had been surrounding the whole thing was really not to his style, especially because of his calibre of Pokémon.

So Evelyn and Lara had continued on without him to Oreburgh City, where they would challenge the Gym Leader, obtain the Coal Badge, then continue on towards Canalave City, the next town with a Gym Leader and their present location. Along the way, Lara had caught a Starly on Route 203, which she had nicknamed Stark.

Evelyn wondered why she'd brought up the topic of Zephi as well. Maybe it had something to do with that news report they had watched that morning, about the mauling of the rich guy. Although she didn't see how Zephi could've possibly been involved with that - especially because it had happened all the way in the region of Hoenn!

"Sorry, Lara, I shouldn't have said anything. But, you're right, we have to find somewhere safer to battle. Iron Island, perhaps?"

Both girls had been itching to visit Iron Island before taking on Byron, the Leader of the Canalave Gym. They'd heard, as well, that it was being transformed into a Safari Zone, of sorts, for Rock- and Steel-type Pokémon. The managers were in the process of introducing new species of Rock and Steel Pokémon from Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and even Unova. It would surely be a place to see before they left - so why not now?

"Sure, okay, as long as we're allowed to fight inside a cave! The weather, remember?" Lara reminded her.

At that very moment, a jagged lightning bolt split the sky and a loud, resounding boom of thunder followed right behind, as if to prove her point.

"Fine, fine, let's just get to the harbour already, though I'm not sure we can get any more soaked, so it's no biggie," Sophie muttered from beside Lara, hair and clothes plastered to her body, chilling her to the bone.

Regardless, the three girls rushed to the harbour and requested the ferry to Iron Island. The ticket man looked at them like they were insane. "You crazy? Have you _seen_ the weather outside? No ferries are running in this. That said, there are still a few empty places on the next ferry to Iron Island that will depart as soon as the storm subsides."

That was going to have to do. "Thank you, we'll take three," Lara told the man.

* * *

><p>It was a very long wait. The girls were sitting in the waiting room with many other annoyed and impatient people waiting to board the ferry. Battles almost broke out on numerous occasions, but the people with common sense always stepped in to warn them that they'd be paying for all the damage their battle incurred.<p>

In fact, it took until 6:00 pm that night for the storm to even become sailable. The rain had let up and the thunder and lightning had more or less moved on, so they figured the ferry would be safe to board. At last.

As expected, a crowd of eager people raced out of the waiting room to the ferry, and by the time everyone was loaded, the interior of the boat was absolutely packed. No one wanted to stand outside due to the weather, understandably. Thankfully, the journey didn't take long, or everyone would've gone crazy from the sheer closeness of everyone else in that small space.

Evelyn raced ahead of Lara and Sophie, determined to get to the gate before a huge lineup kept them waiting even longer.

_"What?"_ came an angry voice from up ahead.

_No way! _Evelyn thought in frustration. _It can't be closed!_

As it turned out, the island was very much open, but they had restricted the customers to one Pokéball per person. It was perhaps a little disappointing, seeing as Evelyn had wanted to catch a strong team here, but it certainly wasn't worth causing everyone else to think the place was closed!

After Lara and Sophie had caught up, they headed straight to the cave, where many Trainers were already battling each other to settle their previous scrums on the ferry.

"Anywhere here works, I guess," Evelyn said. "Take your pick, Sophie."

"Well," the girl replied, wringing her hands. "I don't think the ceiling's high enough in this particular area for her. Concorde won't fit."

_What? This is how tall that evolved Feebas is?_ "How tall exactly is Concorde?" Evelyn asked dubiously.

"Um, I think it's about six metres tall... In feet, uh... twenty."

"YOUR POKÉMON IS TWENTY FEET TALL?" shouted Evelyn in utter disbelief. Sophie did not strike her as the type to fib about her Pokémon's size, so it had to be true. That pathetic little Feebas she'd traded the girl had evolved in a Pokémon _twenty feet tall_.

"I don't think she will be able to battle here," Sophie said. "Maybe we can battle some other time?"

_Yeah, some other time. When I'm the Champion! _Evelyn thought sarcastically. _When am I ever going to be able to take on a twenty foot Pokémon?_

Just then, movement behind a rock in a corner of the cave caught Evelyn's attention. Unfortunately, it had also caught the attention of three other Trainers within eyesight. As the Pokémon slowly drifted out from behind the rock, Evelyn caught a glimpse of blue steel and let her Pokéball fly, exactly as the other three Trainers all threw their own Pokéballs.

The Pokéballs, which were not standard red and white Poké Balls, were instead grey on top with dark blue dots. They also had more weight than a usual Poké Ball to them, as Evelyn had discovered after throwing hers.

It was no time to be wondering about what kind of Pokéballs these strange things were, but whose had caught the Pokémon. All of the Pokéballs had flown together and opened up at the same time, emitting a steely light. Only one had caught the Pokémon. But whose was it?

After a couple of thought-filled moments, one of the other Trainers spoke up. "I say battle for it. First round will be a two-on-two double battle. Next, the winning team will face each other. Winner gets the Pokémon."

It sounded fair to Evelyn, and apparent to the other Trainers as well, because they nodded in earnest. The Trainer that had just spoken teamed up with his female friend who had also been competing for the Pokémon, so Evelyn was paired with the other male Trainer who'd thrown her Pokéball at the Pokémon.

"Each Trainer gets the use of one of their Pokémon. Everyone must throw out their Pokémon all at the same time, though, so no one gets the advantage. Choose and yell 'ready!'."

Evelyn thought. Skorupi was strong and it could poison its foes, but she was pretty sure Snover was stronger - plus, it had GrassWhistle, which usually put its foes to sleep. But, that was a big if. However, since she might have to battle two people in a row, she would need her stronger Pokémon out in this battle, or else she'd only have one Pokémon to battle her partner.

"Ready!" Evelyn yelled, confident in her choice of Snover.

"Okay. The battle begins... now!"

With that, four Pokémon flew out of their Pokéballs in bursts of light and battle cries rang out through the cave. Evelyn stared at the opponents' Pokémon - she and her partner were up against a Luxio and a Ponyta. She had her Snover and, darting a quick look sideways, she saw that her partner had an ugly red, blue, and yellow bird Pokémon that was flapping extremely quickly to try and stay in the air. Evelyn sighed. If by some miracle they managed to win, she would have no trouble taking down this sorry-looking bird Pokémon.

The Trainer that had decided on the match in the first place started the battle. "Ray, use Bite on that Snover!"

Okay. Evelyn could work with that. "Snover, counterattack with Leer. Stop that Luxio in its tracks!"

Though Snover's Leer attack didn't stop the Luxio completely, it temporarily unnerved it and caused it to lose the speed and purpose of the attack, and Snover was able to dodge out of the way. But danger was still imminent. The female Trainer with the Ponyta ordered it to use Flame Wheel on Snover. Apparently, the opponents weren't going to waste time with such an unfortunate Pokémon as Evelyn's partner's.

But before the Ponyta could begin its attack, Evelyn's partner gave an order. "Archen, Acrobatics!"

Immediately, the dilapidated bird perked up and raced at in-human speed at the Ponyta and began to whirl around it, almost so fast that it couldn't be clearly seen. It launched attacks all over the Ponyta's body and, powerless to see the bird Pokémon in order to stop it, the Pokémon just stood there, despite its Trainer's pleas to 'do something!'.

The Luxio's Trainer tried to come to the Ponyta's rescue. "Ray, Spark!"

It probably wasn't the smartest move. In Ray the Luxio's attempts to use Spark on the Archen, it ended up electrocuting the Ponyta instead, causing it to faint.

_One down, one to go. And then there's the question of defeating my partner's Archen, who turned out to be a lot more powerful than I'd thought, _Evelyn thought tensely.

Evelyn's partner called off his Archen as the female Trainer angrily recalled her Ponyta and said some nasty things to her partner before storming off deeper into the cave. Just then, the Luxio's Trainer recalled his Pokémon as well and, with a sheepish apology, hurried off after his friend into the cave.

"Well, it looks like we won," Evelyn muttered grudgingly, thinking about how difficult it was going to be to defeat this Trainer.

"And now, you must battle me to win the Roggenrola!" Evelyn's partner exclaimed.

"A Roggenrola? That's what we caught?" Evelyn asked. Not that she knew what it was, but she supposed it would been good to know the Pokémon that she would surely lose.

"Two-on-two?" the Trainer offered. Evelyn nodded in response and the battle began as Snover and Archen were called forth yet again.

Evelyn wanted to start this off before that Archen could make a move. "Snover, Icy Wind!"

But the other Trainer seemed to have anticipated everything. "Archen, fly up above and Pluck on the flyby!"

As Snover blew the Icy Wind, he tried to aim it upward at the bird, but it was too quick. As Archen passed by Snover's head, it plucked him up by a leaf and carried him a little ways before dropping him again. While Snover recovered from getting dumped in the dirt, the Trainer ordered Archen to perform the dreaded Acrobatics. Snover couldn't fit a move in edgewise, and before long, he fainted.

Cursing angrily, Evelyn recalled Snover and sent out Skorupi, determined to defeat this Archen. "Skorupi, Poison Sting!"

The little scorpion Pokémon scuttled quickly up to the Archen and stuck the point of its tail right into its wing. The bird squawked and fell to the ground, poisoned. Obviously, the other Trainer wasn't interested in fighting with a poisoned Pokémon.

"Kabuto, revenge!" he called out, releasing a brown dome-like Pokémon that looked like a horseshoe crab.

The Pokémon, when looked at from above, looked fairly unthreatening, but below its shell, two red eyes glared out from the darkness. It was nothing if not unnerving.

Knowing that there was no possible way to penetrate Kabuto's shell with a Poison Sting, Evelyn was forced to try a different tactic. "Pin Missile, Skorupi! Aim for under the shell!"

"Harden, Kabuto," came the opposing Trainer's smooth counter.

The little spikes hit Kabuto's newly solid body and pinged helplessly off, falling to the ground. Evelyn wasn't sure what to do next; all of Skorupi's moves were physical, contact attacks! This Trainer must've known that and sent out a Pokémon that he knew Skorupi could do next to nothing against.

"Aqua Jet!" called Evelyn's opponent, breaking her out of her stupor.

The Kabuto shot a jet of water at Evelyn's Skorupi, knocking it back a couple of feet and leaving it weak. Then, since Evelyn was practically powerless to attack, Kabuto was ordered to finish it off with a Mud Shot.

And finish it off the Kabuto did. Skorupi fainted and Evelyn silently recalled it. She couldn't believe she had lost in such a one-sided battle. This guy's Pokémon were strong, though they all looked so inferior at first. All of her Pokémon looked fearsome, but they had fallen to this other Trainer. How?

"Good match, though I would recommend teaching your Skorupi some long-range and non-contact moves. I think it would drastically increase your odds of winning." The Trainer had come up to Evelyn and held out his hand for her to shake. Evelyn took it half-heartedly. She appreciated that this guy was not bragging of his win, but helping her to improve for next time. She figured the least she could do was be polite.

"Thanks," she replied, managing a thin smile. "It looks like I still have a lot of training to do. But I've never seen Pokémon like yours before. Where did you get them?"

"I resurrected each one from a fossil," he told Evelyn proudly as she looked on in incredulous amazement.

"You can do that?" Evelyn asked in wonder. "No wonder you're so strong, then. You're fighting with ancient Pokémon!"

"You could put it that way." The Trainer laughed. "I'm Simon. And you are?"

"Evelyn," she rallied. "And over there" - she gestured to Lara and Sophie, who had been watching the whole ordeal - "are my friends Lara and Sophie."

Simon waved at them and turned back to Evelyn. "What do you say I show you this Roggenrola, see if it's a Pokémon you'll want for yourself in the future?"

Evelyn agreed and Simon knelt to pick up the strange Pokéball.

"By the way," Evelyn speculated, "what kind of Pokéballs are those? I've never seen anything like them before."

"These," Simon began, juggling the Pokéball in one hand, "are Heavy Balls. They use them here because all the Pokémon are either Rock- or Steel-type; Pokémon that tend to be heavy. The only way to get them is to collect Black Apricorns in the Johto region and get the famous Kurt in Azalea Town to make them into Pokéballs for you."

"Complicated," Evelyn said, eyes wide. "They must be pretty rare and valuable, then. Maybe we'll have to pay the Johto region and this Kurt a visit sometime. But anyway, let's see this Roggenrola of yours."

Simon obliged, releasing the Pokémon in a steely grey flash of light. The thing that appeared before Evelyn's eyes didn't look at all as she'd imagined a Roggenrola to look. At very least, she'd expected Roggenrola to be a rock. This was a horizontal and somewhat cylindrical steel thing that had claw-like things on its lower surface. One big eye was embedded it its side. it was, overall, a very difficult Pokémon to describe.

"That's not a Roggenrola!" Simon cried in surprise. "That's a Beldum!"

_That explains it, then, _Evelyn thought. _This isn't a Rock Pokémon, nor is it a Roggenrola. It's the Steel- and Psychic-type Pokémon, Beldum!_

"Well, I didn't come here for a Beldum. I can't keep this Pokémon. I came here to catch a Roggenrola, and since I only have one Pokéball to use, I can't make any exceptions." Simon offered the Pokéball to Evelyn. "Do you want it?"

"M-Me?" Evelyn stuttered in surprise. "But you beat me for it! It's yours!"

Simon looked impatient. "Yes, well, I just finished saying that I can't keep it. So, do you want it or not?"

"Yes! Yes, of course! I'd love to have it!" Evelyn said quickly, still not believing this was really happening. She could already see her wonderful Metagross rampaging around the battle field and ravaging every Pokémon in sight...

Evelyn eagerly took the Heavy Ball from Simon and held it up triumphantly for Lara and Sophie to see.

"I got a Beldum!"

_**A/N: Evelyn and Lara appeared earlier that you (and even I) had expected! But hoo, boy, I think that's the longest chapter I've ever written! I think Evelyn and Lara deserved it, though, I needed to get you caught up with them and their current whereabouts, progress, and all that other fun stuff. Writing this chapter, though, made me miss writing about Evelyn and Lara, so I think I'll try and have them reunited before the end of the book. I'll see.**_

**_Now...reviews. :)_**

**_MidsummerMoonlight99: About the whole mind-reader thing, when I looked back on that part I wondered why I did it as well. I think it was just laziness that caused me to skip a whole extra line or two of dialogue as the question is asked, answered, etc. Or I just didn't realize when I was writing it how unrealistic it sounded. Sorry._**

**_RushedFast: Hopefully the beginning of this chapter will have answered the general questions about Jeff's death. If it doesn't, ask again, and I'll clear up anything lasting that still makes no sense._**

**_So, I guess what I tried to do with this chapter is clear up any questions or curiosities you might have concerning Evelyn and Lara. I hope I succeeded! :D_**


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